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This Was the Chief Cook. 


( Page 61.) 


THE WIZARDS OF 
RYETOWN 




BY 


a/constance smedley 


AND 

L. A. TALBOT 


ILLUSTRATED BY 
ANGUSINE MACGREGOR 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
I 9°5 




(THi library of 

CONGRESS. 

Two 0 «bi^ fSecolvec 

0C1 26 1905 

Cteiwnffiit Entr* 

(pcf.lt.tto* 

QIM& &- JWte- 

I X°tX 7 * 

S 


Copyright, 1905 
By 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
Published October, 1905 



THE MER9HON COMPANY PRESS 
RAHWAY, N. J. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I. Lavender Garden 

II. How Lavender Set out on Her Search for 
the Prince 

III. Lavender Finds a Castle and a Page . 

IV. A Cave and a Kitchen 

V. The Princess Lavender is Sent on an Errand 

VI. Julia the Witch 

VII. The Plot of the Woodland People 

VIII. The Peterkins 

IX. Lavender Makes Two New Acquaintances . 

X. Goody Two-Shoes 

XI. The Cow Tries to Pay a Call, and Laven- 
der Tries to Take the Castle all by Her- 
self 

XII. The Running-Away 

XIII. Barleyborough Fair 

XIV. The Siege of the Black Castle 

XV. How the Cow Spoke the Truth at Last 

XVI. What the Mayor and Mrs. Spice Did . 

XVII. The Victory 

XVIII. Back to Lavender Garden . . . 


PAGE 

I 

19 

33 

54 

66 

83 

100 

114 

128 

144 

161 

177 

195 

208 

225 

237 

248 

265 


V 


















































' 















CHAPTER I 


SLavenfcer Oarfcen 

O NCE upon a time there was a sweet little prin- 
cess named Lavender, and her home was in 
a lavender garden, which, as every one knows, is a 
charming place to live in. The hedge round the 
garden was of yew, dark and thick and high, and 
there was never a door nor gate nor peep-hole nor 
chink all the way round, and no one who lived there 
had ever so much as stepped outside, so they did not 
know what country they lived in. To tell you the 
truth, neither do I. 

Princess Lavender did not live alone ; she had two 
merry little girls to play with her — their names were 
Ebony and Ivory; Ebony was a little Indian, dark, 
almost black, but very pretty, with curling dark hair 
and such a bright smile. Ivory came from Japan; 
her face was the colour of ivory, and she fastened 


2 The Wizards of Ryetown 

her hair with great pins and combs so that it never 
came down, however much she danced and jumped. 

These two little maids were never tired of admir- 
ing one another, but it was nothing to the way they 
admired Lavender, with her long golden hair and 
rosy cheeks. If she felt dull or cross she had only 
to clap her hands and call : 

“ Ladies, ladies, come and play, 

We will drive all care away ! ” 

Then they would run up to her and dance and sing 
so prettily that no one could possibly feel dull any 
longer. At least, one would think so, but, would 
you believe it! Lavender was sometimes cross to 
those dear little girls, even when they were doing 
their very best to please her, and the excuse she made 
was that they were not princesses. She wanted a 
prince or princess to play with, she said. 

In this garden, lavender bushes grew everywhere, 
and perfumed the air most delicately. They grew 
in rows beneath the dark green hedge of yew, and in 
circles round the fountains, and in great thickets 
round the Princess's house. 

You never saw a house like the one the Princess 
lived in, I am sure, for it was built inside an enor- 
mous yew tree. Windows and doors were cut in the 
thick green walls, the carpet was woven of pine- 


3 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

needles with the sharp points carefully cut off so 
that they should not prick the Princess’s soft feet. 
Her bed was made of lavender blossoms, oh, so 
sweet! Ebony and Ivory had woven the counter- 
pane and the curtains out of the blue-green lavender 
leaves, and a wonderful pattern they made of it too, 
for there were little cats playing with little mice, and 
merry goblins embroidered with white rabbit’s wool 
on the border, so no wonder Lavender had interest- 
ing dreams. You very likely think you would not 
care to sleep in a yew tree because of the earwigs, 
and it’s quite true there were a good many. But 
every night before the Princess went to bed, Ebony 
and Ivory used to stand outside the tree and sing 
this song, and the earwigs listened and understood 
it quite well : 

" Shiny people, 

Slender and brown. 

Lavender loves you, 

Down, come down. 

“ For she wants to sleep 
So sound, so sound, 

With no little people 
Above and around. 

“ Pretty people, 

Slender and brown, 

You love Lavender, 

Down, gome down,” 


4 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Then the earwigs would come running down and 
play in a lavender bush till morning. 

The garden was not altogether so quiet and 
dreamy as you may think, for through the very 
middle of it there ran a stream, swift, bustling, and 
noisy. It came with a bubble and a rush out of one 
dark cave, and ran as fast as ever it could between 
golden flags and forget-me-nots until it disappeared 
in another dark cave at the further end of the garden. 
Such beautiful fish, such funny little insects lived in 
it, such bright-winged dragon-flies and birds flew 
over it as would take me all day to tell- you about ; 
and Lavender liked nothing better than to sit and 
watch it run by and listen to its song. 

I said just now that Lavender was never in a bad 
temper for very long together, but one morning she 
woke up feeling really horrid. She could not help 
that, of course, and she did her best to get rid of the 
feeling by calling her little maidens to sing and 
dance. But that was no good, their voices sounded 
almost ugly, and their dancing looked to her quite 
awkward. She told them they were common and 
sang flat, and then, for fear she should say something 
still more unkind, she sent them away to feed the 
gold and silver fish in the fountain while she wan- 
dered about a broad drive where she sometimes rode 


The Wizards of Ryetown 5 

on one of her milk-white goats, and tried hard to 
imagine that she was lost in a pathless desert. But 
it wasn’t the least good, the pretend would not come. 

u What is the use?” she grumbled, “there’s a 
great hedge there in front of my nose, a great hedge 
there , and a great hedge there, and it’s no use trying 
to play at anything, and I’ve only common little girls 
to play with, and it’s all too bad ! ” 

Then she went to the river and threw sticks into 
it and watched them twist and twirl and bob, and 
then rush away on the swift current down into the 
black cave under the hedge and go — ah, where did 
they go ? 

“ Oh, little sticks ! ” cried the Princess, “ if I could 
only be tiny and ride on you down the river and into 
the cave and out the other side into the wide world 
where one meets princes and princesses, how happy 
I should be ! Where do you go, little sticks ? ” 

But the sticks answered never a word, it was as 
much as they could do to keep their balance ; besides, 
they had not been out into the world yet. 

When the Princess grew tired of throwing sticks 
and asking them questions they could not answer, she 
lay down on the river’s bank under a tall old laven- 
der bush and looked up at the blue sky. But that did 
no good. 


6 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ Oh dear, oh dear ! ” she said, “ how stupid the 
sky is, blue right down to the hedges; and I’m so 
tired of blue sky, it’s too bad, nobody changes it for 
me!” 

She began to feel so sorry for herself, she nearly 
cried, and it really was dull for a princess who loved 
adventure. The old lavender bush under which she 
was sitting felt quite grieved for the little Princess, 
and bent down and breathed in her face until Laven- 
der fell into a sweet sleep and forgot to be dull or 
cross, and except for the droning of the bees and the 
ripple of the water, there was no sound in Lavender 
Garden. 

Rush ! Ripple ! Rush ! Ripple ! Splash ! What 
was that ? 

Not a trout this time, but a round black thing 
which had come from the dark cave where the river 
enters the garden. Nearer and nearer it comes to 
the bank where Princess Lavender lies sleeping, and 
now one can see what it is — the head of a graceful 
boy who is swimming through the water. Imagine 
it ! He had swum through the dark, cold cave, and 
was indeed glad to scramble out and stand in the 
bright sunshine. There he was, a prince every inch 
of him, from his dark curly hair and bright dark eyes 
to the tip of his jewelled shoes. The water dripped 


The Wizards of Ryetown 7 

from his sword as he waved it and sent the drops 
flying over the roses and lavender blossoms ; then he 
gave his cap with the crimson plume a whirl and a 


He had Swum through the Dark, Cold Cave. 



twirl and a swirl and a curl, wrung the water out of 
his gold-laced cloak, and marched up the bank erect 
and gallant, as every royal prince should be. 

Splash! A big drop of water fell on Princess 





8 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Lavender’s pretty nose and woke her right up. 
Where could it have come from? The sky was still 
as blue as blue, so it couldn’t be rain, but there was 
the Prince with a drop of river water on his best 
front curl, the very image of the drop on the Prin- 
cess’s nose, so I am almost certain he had kissed her. 
He was a bold young prince, oh, very bold ! 

So Lavender sat up and looked at him. 

“ Who are you, if you please? ” said she. 

“ I am Prince Robin,” said he ; “ I hope you don’t 
mind my coming down your river, because I’m in 
search of a kingdom, and I’m looking high and low 
for one.” 

Here he put his hand in his innermost pocket and 
took out his crown and put it on — it looked so grand 
on his bonny black curls. 

“ Sit down and talk to me,” said the Princess. 
“ My name is Lavender, and I’m so tired of being a 
princess here all by myself ; you can have my king- 
dom for your very own, and then you need not ever 
go away again, but stay and play with me.” She 
looked as pretty as a picture when she said it. 

“ Oh, that sounds nice ! ” said Prince Robin ; “ is 
your kingdom anywhere near ? Could I have a look 
at it?” 

“ Well — yes — rather near,” said Lavender, hardly 


The Wizards of Ryetown 9 

knowing what to say; “ perhaps I ought to have 
called it a garden kingdom — in fact — well ” — she 
waved her hand round — “ this is it ! But I’ve heaps 
and heaps of money-bags besides,” she went on in a 
great hurry, for the Prince looked rather inclined to 
laugh, “ and stores and stores of nice things, silks 
and satins and gold lace, and I can't tell you what ! ” 
“ But bless your heart,” said the Prince, “that isn’t 
the sort of thing at all, though it is very kind of you. 
What I want is a kingdom; a real army-and-navy- 
and laws-and-taxes kingdom. I couldn’t sit in a 
garden, however many money-bags were in it, oh, I 
couldn’t ; I must have something to rule ! ” 

“ There’s Ebony and Ivory and the goats,” said 
Lavender quite faintly: Prince Robin was so ener- 
getic. 

“ And space to hunt and fight in.” 

“ We could pretend,” said Lavender ; “ this morn- 
ing I almost pretended that the drive was a pathless 
desert. You couldn’t want anything bigger than a 
pathless desert, could you ? ” 

Here the Prince could not stand it any longer, he 
burst out laughing. 

“ You are so funny,” he said ; “ if you were a boy, 
you would know that pretending is only a game for 
girls, or boys who have nothing better to do. But 


io The Wizards of Ryetown 

I tell you what. At first I started out with the idea 
of having a kingdom all to myself ” 

Lavender interrupted him ; it seemed a great deal 
too bad to laugh when she had offered him her own 
garden kingdom, for though it was not very large, 
it was the only one she had. 

“ You think I should be in the way,” she said with 
a toss of her head. 

“ There ! ” said Prince Robin, laughing again 
(there never was such a prince to laugh), “ now I’ve 
offended you. But you didn’t let me finish,” he went 
on quite seriously ; “ I was going to say that that was 
my idea before I came here. Now I am sure I 
should not enjoy a kingdom at all unless I shared it 
with you. So let us look over this place of yours : 
perhaps it is large enough for just a small army.” 

So they tripped away hand in hand, and you may 
be sure there wasn’t a bit they left unexplored. They 
sailed up and down the river, they drove the great 
carriage round and round the broad gravel paths, 
they fed the goldfish and the birds, and danced and 
sang with Ebony and Ivory. Lavender would not 
give in ; she wanted so much to have Prince Robin to 
stay, for a boy makes a garden so lively : but at last 
even Prince Robin had to confess he was quite tired 
out, and they sat down on the river bank to rest. 


II 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ It’s no good,” said the Prince. “ It is much too 
small, whatever way you look at it. I’m very sorry, 
Princess, but I couldn’t live here; it would be dif- 
ferent if I were a flower or a vegetable. And we 
couldn’t even go for excursions, for it would take 
hours to swim through that dirty cave, and no doubt 
it’s just as far and as dirty through the cave on the 
other side of your garden. When I’m a king I want 



They Drove the Great Carriage Round and Round. 


to go my rides in style, with processions and horses 
and banners and plumes, and swords flashing in the 
sun, not to come creeping out of a wet cave, or 
what’s the use being a king and queen ! ” 

“We could pretend,” said Lavender. Poor 


12 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Lavender, she felt quite sad that Prince Robin should 
look down on her pretty garden so. “ The goats 
might do for chargers, and the flags make really 
splendid banners, for they are as gold as gold, and 
their leaves could be our swords/’ 

The Prince laughed good-naturedly, and shook his 
head. 

“ It’s no use, Princess,” he said. “ I must find a 
real kingdom, with towns and castles and subjects 
and real live kings all round with whom I can make 
treaties if they’re nice and wage war if they’re 
wicked ; real war with sharp sword and real armour. 
I have some at home, all solid bright gold, helmet 
and breastplate and shield and sword ; I do wish you 
could see it, Princess ; it would dazzle your eyes, for 
it shines like the sun.” 

“ I wish I could indeed, and I know you look so 
nice in it. Can’t you fetch it to show me? ” 

“ Well, it isn’t exactly at home,” said Prince 
Robin. “ I started out in it, but at a place called 
Ryetown I left it with my page, a fat fellow, no good 
at adventures. Gold armour is heavy for swimming, 
and so I left it with him, but I shall call for it when 
I’ve looked out a kingdom and am ready for the 
fighting. Then, when I’ve won it, I’ll come for 
you.” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 13 

“Will you wear the gold armour when you come 
for me? ” asked Lavender. 

“ Oh, yes, certainly I will,” said Prince Robin, 
“ but I must be off now! ” 

“Oh, must you really?” said the Princess, and, 
do what she would, a big tear trickled down her 
cheek, she was so disappointed. 

“ Don’t cry, please don’t,” said Prince Robin, and 
kissed the great big tear. “ I must leave you in 
Lavender Garden, because girls of course can’t 
rough it, they have to have things neat and gardeni- 
fied — they always stop at home and wait. But when 
I am King, you shall be Queen. There, don’t cry! 
Give me a sprig of lavender.” 

So she plucked the sprig of lavender and fastened 
it in his crown. 

“ There ! ” said he, “ you may be sure I shall never 
forget you.” And then he took both her hands in 
his and said : 

“ Lavender’s blue, diddle diddle. 

Lavender’s green ! 

When I am King, diddle diddle, 

You shall be Queen !” 

This was very much what he had said before, but 
now he could say it in poetry because he was in love. 
Then he wrapped up his crown carefully in his cap, 


14 The Wizards of Ryetown 

put the parcel in his innermost pocket to keep it dry ? 
and plunged gaily into the water. 

Splash ! There he was at the great black 
water-way under the hedge, waving his hand, and in 
another second he had disappeared. 

Lavender watched the very last bubble on the 
water float away into the darkness before she turned 
round. Ah ! there she was in the same old garden, 
but how changed it was! All the fun seemed to 
have run away down the river into the dark cave 
under the hedge ; the leaves looked brown and faded, 
the blue sky was covered with sad grey clouds, the 
wind whispered mysteriously, and the yew hedge 
seemed to Lavender like a cruel serpent wound 
round her and her garden. She wandered about all 
day, feeling worse and worse, and when Ebony and 
Ivory had tucked her into her sweet little bed, she 
was no better off, for her eyes would not shut, and 
she stared through the window at the stars that 
glittered in the dark blue sky, and thought of noth- 
ing but Prince Robin. Presently the moon rose 
higher and higher, till the whole garden was as light 
as day; the rosebushes swayed in the wind. Was 
it fancy? Or were there really whisperings: 

“ To the river ! To the river ! ” 

Then a white bat came whirling down the sky, and 


The Wizards of Ryetown 15 

after a few circles outside, swept in at the door with 
a soft swish and flapped about in the roof just over 
Lavender’s head. 

She didn’t quite like it, would you ? And she felt 
half inclined to wake up her maidens and tell them to 
drive it away, when she heard a little shred of voice 
no bigger than a squeaky slate-pencil in the next 
room, and this is what it sang : 



Then a White Bat Swept in at the Door. 


1 6 The Wizards of Ryetown 

At that the bat flew out through the window, and 
Lavender heard his thin little voice die away in the 
distance, squeaking: “ Some day, some day! ” as he 
flew over the top of the great green hedge and was 
gone. 

She raised herself up in her little bed and peeped 
round her room. Ebony and Ivory were sleeping 
quietly as merry little maidens should, so that was 
all right. The Princess popped on the first frock 
that came to hand and waited for no one to help her 
— it was a blue silk one ; then she put first one little 
foot, then the other little foot, from underneath the 
counterpane and softly to the ground; holding her 
breath, she slipped on her shoes and tip-toed out into 
the silent garden. Ebony and Ivory never stirred. 

How strange the garden seemed in the moonlight ! 
The pale pink monthly roses looked like ghost- 
flowers as they swayed hither and thither in the night 
wind ; the river was stranger still, for it was singing 
little songs in its changeful voice, now loud, now 
soft. Listen to the first running water you come to 
and you will know what its voice was like. And this 
is what it sang : 

“ Pretty golden Princess, 

Pretty rosy maid, 

Jump into my cool arms, 

Do not be afraid !” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 17 

But over the stones it never stopped laughing and 
saying with a chuckle : “ Jump in, girlie, jump in ! ” 

Lavender did not stop to think, she just gathered 
her little gown about her and jumped into the water. 
Oh, how cold it was, to be sure ! But pleasant too, 
and it held her up and carried her on so that she 
swam as gaily as any little trout; that was because 
she was a princess. 

Whirl ! Swirl ! Here she was at the entrance of 
the cave — the great hedge over her head seemed high 
as a mountain, and she hardly dared look up. She 
gave one little shriek and one little stroke, and then 
shut her eyes for sheer fright and giddiness as the 
current seized her and whirled her away into the 
darkness. 

On and on she swam, it might have been for 
hours, but she did not know the time, for of course 
she had left her watch under her pillow, and if she 
had brought it, she would have had no watch-pocket 
to put it in, and if she had had a watch-pocket, the 
water would have got into the works, and if the 
water had not got into the works, she could not have 
seen the time in the dark, so perhaps it was quite as 
well she had left her watch behind her in the yew- 
tree bower in Lavender Garden. 

As I said, it seemed a long time, but she did not 


1 8 The Wizards of Ryetown 

complain, for she was a brave little girl and there 
was no one to complain to ; besides, the water would 
have rushed into her mouth ; so she shut her eyes as 
well as her mouth, and took a little nap instead, and 
never woke until there came a sudden flash of light. 
Then how she jumped! Just like a trout up the 
shallows, for she found herself out in the sunlight of 
the open river, and the long, long cave was a mere 



She Shook out Her Golden Hair to Dry in 
the Sun. 


black speck in the distance, and all around her were 
beautiful green flowery meadows as far as eye could 
see. 

“So this is the world!” said she, and stepped 
ashore, and picked the water-weeds daintily off her 
gown, and shook out her golden hair to dry in the 
sun. But she could not waste much time on her 
toilet, for the sun was high in the heavens and the 
Prince was yet to be found. 



CHAPTER II 

Ibow Xauenfcer Set out on Iber Search tor 
tbe lPrtnce 

T HE sunshine quickly dried Lavender’s skirts 
and her long bright hair. 

“ I must be quick,” she said, “ for he has a long 
start of me already, and I do want to find him 
soon.” 

So off she started at once across the meadows, 
never heeding the cows who looked quite grave at 
seeing a princess, with long golden hair and no hat, 
running such a pace in a blue silk frock so early in 
the morning ; but they said never a word, for she was 
in the next meadow before they could think of one. 
Presently she came to a highroad where there were a 
great many people, some walking, some sitting in 
wagons drawn by great white oxen, some riding 
pillion on strong farm-horses, and all with their faces 
set in one direction. 


19 


20 The Wizards of Ryetown 

There were many companies too, of knights and 
squires and gentlemen, riding their splendid horses 
with fluttering plumes and gay mantles and jingling 
spears. These last went by in a flash and a clatter and 
a cloud of dust and took no notice at all of Laven- 
der; but the country people on the contrary stared 
inquisitively, and some of them made remarks and 
laughed at her. She did not like this at all, and did 
not know what to do at first, for there were no rude 
people in Lavender Garden ; but being a princess, she 
soon guessed the best way to behave, and never 
answered when they asked her : “ Who’s your hat- 
ter? ” or “ Have you lost your carriage? ” or things 
of that sort, but took no notice at all of what they 
said, walking among them quietly; so that after a 
while they turned away rather ashamed, and began 
to talk to one another about the price of turnips, and 
the fun they were going to have in Ryetown, and 
how grand the procession would be. 

So she walked on for a long, long way, and her 
feet were tired and sore, for her little shoes were thin 
and rather high in the heel, and she thought it was 
almost time she found Prince Robin, but in that she 
was very much mistaken, as you will see. As she 
went, she looked hard at the troops of knights and 
squires and gentlemen, but never caught a glimpse of 


The Wizards of Ryetown 21 

any one in the least like her Prince, who had come 
down the water to Lavender Garden. 

At last she came to a town, and here all the coun- 
try people stopped ; some turned into houses or shops, 
while those with horses went into the inn yards to 
tie them up and give them some corn; but a great 
many besides stood in the street talking and laugh- 
ing with their friends, while their heavy carts 
blocked up the way. 

So hot and bright it was, and so noisy too, that it 
made the little Princess feel like a fairy she had once 
heard of who was shut up in a scarlet poppy with a 
humble-bee for a punishment, and she almost wished 
herself back in the cool blue and green shade of 
Lavender Garden; not quite, for she was a brave 
girl, and had had lessons from Fairy Stick-to-it 
when she was quite a baby. 

Besides it was very interesting and exciting, all 
this bustle and fuss, with the laughing and talking, 
the strange faces and dresses, the Punch and Judies, 
the runners, the jugglers and the ballad-singers at 
every street corner — for the whole town was all in 
holiday trim, and Lavender did not know the whole 
world contained so many people as were abroad in 
the streets of this one very little town. 

In the market square, where the sun was brightest 


22 The Wizards of Ryetown 

and the noise noisiest and the bustle bustliest, there 
were stalls for the sale of nuts and sweets and toys 
and curly fair-gingerbreads and all sorts of good 
things, and Lavender was very glad to be out of the 
crush and to rest on an old basket in the patch of 
shade between two of the stalls and quietly to 
watch the two old women who owned them as 
they arranged their goods for sale, chatting and 
nodding and making a great deal of to-do in the 
process. 

They were funny old women: the one kept figs 
and gingerbreads and brandy-snaps ; she was 
wrinkled as a fig and brown as a nut, her hair was 
just the colour of gingerbread, her shrewd twinkling 
eyes like black boot-buttons, and she had a bright 
yellow kerchief tied round her head because she 
thought it suited her complexion. Her name was 
Mrs. Hot Spice. 

The other old woman sold green bananas and sips 
of peppermint cordial in tiny blue glasses (perhaps 
because she knew that unripe fruit is not very whole- 
some — she was much more good-natured than Mrs. 
Spice) and she wore a white apron, and a white cap 
round her plump face ; altogether she was not so very 
unlike a nice round peppermint drop. And her name 
was Mrs. Pot. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 23 

They were talking* away forty to the dozen, 

“ Jedge seems pretty popular/' Mrs. Spice was 
saying; her voice was crisp and crackly like a new 
ginger-nut. “ I never see such a sight of folk keep- 
ing his birthday in the town afore." 

Mrs. Pot shook her head, she always poured her 
words out carefully like medicine, and shook her 
head first as if she were shaking the bottle. 

“ A — A — h ! ” said she, “ it aint the Jedge as is 
popular, never you believe it; he’s jest the same old 
curmudgeon he always was. N — N — N-oo.” Here 
she shook her head again, and poured out a few more 
words, — in drops. “ IPs the Prince as he’s picked 
up; a real live prince. Staying up at the castle. 
That’s what they’ve all come to see. And the ar- 
mour. And the ’orses. And the procession.’’ 

Lavender shook her hair away from her ears to 
hear better, for it did not seem to be at all a private 
conversation, and there was a prince in it. 

“ Real gold armour he wears too, so they says,’’ 
went on Mrs. Pot. Up jumped Lavender when she 
heard that , you may be sure. 

“ Oh, you dear old woman ! ’’ she cried, “ I could 
kiss you, I could. Tell me where he is, this very 
minute ! ’’ 

Mrs. Spice’s boot-button eyes fairly stuck out of 


24 The Wizards of Ryetown 

her head with amazement when she saw Lavender 
pop up into sight among the baskets ; she stared at 
her, but spoke to Mrs. Pot, who was shaking her 
head as if she would shake it off. 

“Well, of all the imperence!” said Mrs. Spice. 
“ Lor’, what a turn she give me! ” 

“ ’Er wants a drop of peppermint. It’s the 'eat, as 
’as got into ’er head,” said Mrs. Pot mildly, and 
they sat and stared at Lavender in the most irritating 
way imaginable. 

“ Where is this Judge you are talking about ? ” 
she said, stamping her little foot with impatience, for 
they made round eyes at her as if she were a per- 
forming canary or a walking doll or something of 
that sort, and did not attend to anything she said, 
and that was not at all the sort of behaviour the 
Princess was used to. 

“ ’Er arms is all bare,” said Mrs. Pot. “ Shall I 
give ’er a drop of peppermint ? It’s the ’eat. It ’d 
do her good.” 

“ Drop of fiddlesticks ! ” said Mrs. Spice. 

“ I’m really quite well, and not at all hot,” said 
Lavender, doing her best to keep her temper, “ and 
I don’t like peppermint, but I should be so much 
obliged if you would tell me the way to this Judge’s 
house, where the Prince is.” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 25 

Mrs. Pot stared at her solemnly, shook her head 
quite eight times, and turned to Mrs. Spice. 

“ I wonder now,” said she, “ I wonder if she’s 
been a-picking at my bannanners.” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Lavender quite aghast. “ You 
wicked old woman ! I only asked you a civil ques- 
tion, and now you call me a thief ! ” 

“ I don’t call her so very civil,” said Mrs. Spice to 
Mrs. Pot. “ I don’t call it so very civil to come teas- 
ing our lives out with silly questions that everybody 
knows the answer to.” 

“Ah, yes! Everybody knows. Everybody knows 
where to find the Jedge. Is there more than one 
castle in the district, I ask you, Mrs. Spice? Is 
there more than one wood ? Is there more than one 
hill? Don’t every baby and every cat and dog and 
mouse in Ryetown know that if you go up the street 
and follow your nose ” 

Lavender did not stop to hear a single word more ; 
she was off and away, past the market, past the 
wagons, past the parish pump, past the Punch and 
Judies and the mummers and the ballad-singers, up 
the street and over the bridge. She only turned 
round once, and there she saw the two old women 
still nodding and talking and shaking their heads as 
they watched her ; then with a laugh she ran on. 


26 The Wizards of Ryetown 

She left the little hot town behind her as soon as 
she had crossed the bridge ; the road became steeper 
and steeper, and tall trees grew on either side and 
stretched their long arms over it; grass grew in 
broad strips in the cart-ruts, and little birds and 
beasts peeped at her out of the bracken and brambles ; 
the trees now stood thicker and thicker, till they 
formed quite a forest, and the green boughs closed in 
over Lavender’s head. She began to feel rather 
frightened, and well she might if she had only 
known, for this was an enchanted wood — a witch 
named Julia had enchanted it. You will hear some 
more about her presently. 

Before the Princess had gone very far, she saw a 
white hare walking along the road in front of her — 
he carried a large blue umbrella and peered up at 
the sky now and then as if he were afraid of rough 
weather. There was a little path that crossed the 
highroad, and down it Lavender saw a black cat 
coming with a market-basket on her arm and a dozen 
parcels, little and big, filling both her paws. She 
wore a red cloak, and carried a pair of pattens hang- 
ing from her wrist. The hare stopped when he saw 
the cat, and waited for her to join him; they were 
just in front of Lavender, and as the road was rather 
narrow just there and the cat’s parcels and the hare’s 


The Wizards of Ryetown 27 

umbrella took up a great deal of space, Lavender 
walked slowly a little way behind them. 

“ Awful weather ! ” said the hare, as the cat 
tripped off the grass and trotted along beside 
him. (It was a very nice day indeed really, 
but some people will always grumble at the 
weather. ) 

“ Dreadful ! ” said the cat ; “ I am sure it will 
rain, though it do look so bright. It always rains 
when She sends me out on an errand. She knows 
how I hate wet feet.” 

“ Just like her,” said the hare, “ no thought — 
none ! ” 

“ Who can She be ? ” thought Lavender. “ What 
a disagreeable person, — and how unkind to let poor 
pussy-cat get her feet wet ! ” 

The two animals walked on a little way in silence, 
the hare still poking his nose out to feel for rain- 
drops; and what with the hare’s umbrella and the 
cat’s parcels, Lavender could not have passed them 
without pushing, so she did not try, but walked 
slowly and picked a few wild roses, and wondered 
whether white hares always carried umbrellas of 
blue — “ if so, I shall know when I am coming to 
one,” she said to herself. 

Presently the hare spoke again. 


2 8 The Wizards of Ryetowil 

“ There’s something worse than the weather to 
my mind,” said he. 

“ Don’t mention it,” said the cat. “ At least, I 
mean do mention it, for so it is.” 

“ Julia! ” said the hare. 

“ I believe you,” said the cat in a melancholy way. 
“ Do she send me out in the damp? She do! And 
do she make us live in a cave ? She do again ! And 
is she a Tartar and a witch? She are! Don’t tell 
me!” 

“ Oh, I won’t, I won’t indeed ! ” said the hare. 
He was a most timid creature. 

“ Who can Julia be? ” thought Lavender. “ She 
must be a perfectly horrid person ! ” 

Here the hare put his paw to his lips and peered 
behind him cautiously. 

“ Come under my umbrella,” he whispered to the 
cat, “ there’s a person listening. She’s been follow- 
ing us all up the road, miles and miles.” 

Now the Princess would never have thought of 
listening to anything she was not intended to hear, 
so when the two sat down huddled together in the 
middle of the road, and pulled the blue umbrella over 
their heads, she walked smartly past with her head in 
the air, feeling very much offended indeed. As she 
passed by, the hare was just saying: 


The Wizards of Ryetown 29 

And now that old curmudgeon, the Judge, has 
found a prince thing, and he’s meeting him and 
treating him, and wining him and dining him, 
and the fox whispers that he’s going to marry him 
to Julia of all people, — he, he! poor prince!” the 
hare giggled. 

“ Oh, impossible ! ” thought Lavender, for of 
course she believed her own Prince Robin was the 
Prince they were talking about — “ quite impossi- 
ble!” 

She was certain she did not say a single word out 
loud, but this was an enchanted wood, as you know, 
and no sooner had she thought “ impossible,” than 
the hare gave a frightened squeak and hid himself 
behind the stick of the umbrella. 

“ Eavesdropper ! ” he squeaked out. Lavender 
drew herself up proudly, and walked on without 
deigning to say a single word. The cat called after 
her: 

“ There’s going to be a storm, and you’ll get your 
feet wet ; I know you will ! ” 

This remark may have been kindly meant, but 
Lavender only walked on with her chin in the air, 
she was so offended ; which was a pity, for she could 
not afford to make enemies, and she might have 
made friends with these queer little animals, and 


30 The Wizards of Ryetown 

learnt a great deal from them and saved herself no 
end of trouble by-and-by; but one cannot always 
be wise. 

When at last she let her chin down, and conde- 
scended to look where she was going, the blue um- 
brella was quite out of sight, and a little long-nosed, 
long-tailed shrew-mouse was running along the path 
in front of her. 

“ This is very funny,” thought Lavender ; “ I have 
always been told that mice sleep in the daytime — I 
wonder what can be the matter with it.” She knelt 
down to look at it closer. “ Well, you are the very 
boldest mouse,” she said ; “ what is it you want, 
little thing,” 

“ Are you a friend ? ” said the mouse in the teeni- 
est weeniest voice you can possibly think of. 

“Yes, of course I’m a friend!” answered 
Lavender, “ I love all you little wood-people.” 
The mouse put on a most mysterious expres- 
sion. 

“ Then beware of Julia! ” it said, and disappeared 
in a second under the leaves, and look for it as she 
might, Lavender could not see so much as the tip 
of its tail. 

“Well, to be sure!” she exclaimed; “I never 
heard of such a queer thing ! ” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 3 1 

She was walking quietly on, thinking about the 
mouse’s warning, and wondering whether Julia was 
the “ she ” that the hare and the cat had talked so 
much about, when a sharp nose and two sharp ears 
and two very sharp bright eyes looked at her out of a 
clump of bracken. The ears and the nose and the 
eyes all belonged to a great grey fox. 

u Are you a friend? ” he said. 

“ I don’t know in the least what you mean,” said 
Lavender. “ Whose friend? ” 

“ Oh, Julia’s, of course,” said the fox, looking 
very sly. 

“ How puzzling you wood-people are ! ” said Lav- 
ender. “ I don’t even know who Julia is — I dare 
say I shall be a friend of hers if she’s nice, but I 
can’t tell till I’ve seen her, can I ? ” 

“ Well, you know your own business best, I dare 
say,” said the fox. “ But don’t say you haven’t had 
a warning.” Then, without another word, he was 
gone. 

“ I hope I shall see this Julia,” said Lavender to 
herself. “ I’m not a mouse to be afraid of her, and 
I suppose she must be at the castle, since this path 
leads there — oh, here is the end of the wood, and 
I’m not sorry; I’m almost tired of talking to ani- 
mus,” 


32 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Sure enough she was past the trees and was now 
on a broad road leading up to a great castle which 
stood, grim and gaunt, on the top of the hill over- 
ing Ryetown. 



CHAPTER III 

Xavenber tfinbs a Castle anfc a paoe 

I MAGINE a great black castle with twenty-four 
corners, and two towers at each corner, and two 
banners on each tower made of scarlet silk embroid- 
ered with — well, I can't tell you what they were em- 
broidered with, for each person who looked at them 
saw different devices. The old huntsman saw red 
foxes and whips and spurs, the fine ladies saw gold 
and silver ornaments, the black cat saw hearthrugs 
and fat mice, while Lavender saw Prince Robin. 
For this was a magic castle. 

Lavender walked up the middle of the broad white 
road that led to it, for she had left the cat and the 
hare far behind and went straight to the great 
gateway that led into the courtyard. The gate was 
open, and she could see assembled inside the troops 
33 


34 The Wizards of Ryetown 

of knights and squires and gentlemen which had 
passed her on the way to Ryetown. 

How fine they were, now one saw them close! 
Sitting so stiff and still as if they were afraid of 
rumpling their fine lace and ruffles and cuffs, as un- 
comfortable as boys and girls in Sunday clothes. 
Every knight had a page to hold his horse, and the 



Every Knight had a Page to Hold His Horse. 


pages were almost as fine as their masters, only each 
one wore a broad flat cap, just to show he was a 
page and nothing else. 

The horses tramped and neighed and the pages 


The Wizards of Ryetown 35 

laughed and talked, so that Lavender felt quite be- 
wildered with the noise, and did not see how she 
possibly could get to the castle door to inquire for 
her prince ; so she looked about for some one to help 
her. 

Now there was a merry-looking page, who oddly 
enough reminded her of Prince Robin, though the 
page had stiff ugly red hair instead of beautiful 
black curls; he really had nothing to do, for the 
horse whose bridle he was holding was more than 
half asleep, while his master, the knight who was sit- 
ting upon it, was less than half awake. 

The page looked at Lavender in a cheerful sort of 
way with half a wink and half a dimple, as if he 
meant, “ I’m your friend, you may be sure of that,” 
and this reminded her more and more of Prince 
Robin. 

But he was a stranger (of course) and she 
thought it was only proper to make a little polite 
conversation, as he was standing near. So she curt- 
sied and said she believed there was a shower com- 
ing on. 

“ I don’t see it,” said the page. And now Lav- 
ender came to look there was not a cloud in the 
sky. 

“ All the same, a shower is certainly expected — 


36 The Wizards of Ryetown 

some people I met on the way were talking of it. 
But,” she added, “ that’s neither here nor there.” 

“ Certainly it is not here” said the boy, chuckling. 

Lavender felt very much annoyed ; she didn’t care 
for little jokes, and she did not like to be laughed 
at. It made her bite her lips and toss her head. 

“ Now, you’re cross,” said the boy; but he still 
smiled and did not seem at all put out. 

“ Not in the least,” said Lavender. “ I was only 
waiting till you had quite finished laughing. I am 
in a difficulty and I want to ask you a serious ques- 
tion. Perhaps you will be serious in a few minutes.” 

“ I’ll try,” said the boy. “ I’m not very often seri- 
ous, it’s so difficult. But I’ll do anything I possibly 
can to help you, really.” 

He looked so good-tempered and kind as he said 
this that Lavender forgave him on the spot. 

“ There isn’t time to tell you the whole story how 
I came here,” she said, “ but I’m looking for a prince 
— I mean to say my prince. I’m a princess, you 
know, and he is to come and fetch me as soon as he 
has won his kingdom. He was coming in gold ar- 
mour too ! But I got so tired of waiting that I came 
out into the world to find him, and show him that if 
ordinary girls have to sit in gardens and wait, prin- 
cesses can bear hardships as well as princes. When 


The Wizards of Ryetown 37 

he is king, you know, I shall be queen. I’ve heard 
he s in this castle, and oh, I do hope you’ve seen 
him ! ” 

The boy actually looked grave when he heard this. 

“ Seen him ? ” he said, and looked hard at Lav- 
ender. “ Well, perhaps I have. But I suppose you 
would not care for any one except a prince? No 
one else would do? ” 

“ I should think not ! ” said Lavender. “ Why, 
he is a real prince with a set of golden armour, solid 
and glistening and beautiful ; I have his royal word 
for it. Besides it’s only princes that grow up into 
kings. 

“ When he is king, diddle, diddle, 

I shall be queen !” 

she quoted, feeling so grand just to think of it, “ and 
wear a gold crown ! ” She held up her head very 
high and quite forgot she had no hat on. 

The boy still looked rather grave, and opened his 
mouth as if he were going to say something, but 
shut it again as if he had thought better of it. 

“•You’ve a great deal to learn yet, my fair Prin- 
cess,” he said, “ but there really is a prince in golden 
armour here, and he’s going to ride in a procession 
with the Judge, and we’re waiting for him now. 
Do you want to speak to him ? ” 


38 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ Yes, of course I do,” said Lavender. “ I’ve told 
you I’ve come miles and miles to find him. Why 
do you ask such silly questions ? ” 

The boy screwed up his lips, whistled, and then 
shook his head. 

“ I’m afraid you’ll never get a chance to do that,” 
he said. “ Julia would object to that, and she would 
enchant you in a minute, or clap you in prison, or 
turn you into a beetle or anything. Julia’s a horrid 
girl.” 

“Who cares for Julia?” said the Princess 
proudly ; but she felt a dreadful sinking in her heart. 

At that very moment the great iron doors of the 
castle itself flew open with a clang and a clatter that 
woke the sleepy knight and the sleepy horse and gave 
the page something to do, and made every one 
brighten up and try to look his best. 

Then poured out into the courtyard a most mag- 
nificent procession. 

First there were twenty heralds with twenty brass 
trumpets blowing twenty big blasts. 

Then the Judge. 

Then the queerest girl you ever saw. 

She had a yellow face and piercing yellow eyes ; 
they were so bright they shone like little hot coals. 
She wore no hat, and her crinkly black hair rnade a 


The Wizards of Ryetown 39 

circle round her face, and was plaited in a broad tail 
that fell almost to the ground like a rope. Her 
dress was of soft silky stuff shaded from yellow to 



Then Poured out into the Courtyard a Most Mag- 
nificent Procession 


orange and orange to scarlet, and scarlet to crimson, 
for all the world like the heart of a bright, bright 




40 The Wizards of Ryetown 

fire. Over this, little black goblins were embroid- 
ered, and when she moved, or thought, or wished, 
the stuff glowed and changed like live flames, and 
the goblins ran hither and thither all over the dress. 

This was Julia, the Judge’s daughter, the Young 
Witch. 

Behind her came the Prince in the gold armour. 
A purple plume floated from his helmet, his cloak 
was bright azure blue, while great crimson lilies 
were worked all round the border, and he rode a 
great black horse with gorgeous trappings right 
down to the ground. He was a very grand sight to 
behold, but his helmet was arranged to hide his face 
so that no one could catch a glimpse of it, neither 
Lavender nor anybody else. 

“ I wonder how it is,” she thought ; “ he does not 
behave quite as I thought my Prince Robin would 
do. He has whipped his great horse so that it al- 
most kicked that kind little page, and now he is push- 
ing in front of Julia, and he ought to know the rule 
about ‘ ladies first,’ because he’s a prince.” 

But all the country people and town people in the 
courtyard were staring their hardest at the gold 
armour and the purple plume and the blue cloak, 
and Lavender remembered that she must attract his 
attention at once or it would be too late. So she ran 


The Wizards of Ryetown 41 

forward, pushing her way through the crowd of 
townsfolk and countryfolk and pages; in another 
moment she would be near enough. 

But just as she was taking the last step that would 
bring her to the Prince’s side, she caught her foot in 
something and fell — not to the ground, but on to a 
great blue umbrella with a squeak beneath it. She 
scrambled up as fast as ever she could, and there 
were the cat and the hare right under her feet. 

“ Well ! Talk of manners ! ” said the cat. 

“ Talk of mattresses and mountains! She’s 
broken my new umbrella ! ” panted the hare. 

“ I beg your pardon,” cried Lavender in a great 
hurry; “ I’ll come back and get you another, but I 
can’t stop now, so please don’t hinder me.” 

The Judge and the rest of the procession were just 
speeding out of the gates, but try as she would Lav- 
ender found she could not stir an inch. Whether 
the crowd wedged her in, whether Julia had en- 
chanted her, or whether the cat and the hare were 
holding on to her frock, was more than she could 
tell, but it was all the same, she could not stir. 

“ Ah, Princess,” said a voice behind her, “ what 
did I tell you? You’ll never speak to that Prince 
while Julia’s in the castle.” 

“ It was an accident, you silly boy,” said Lavender 


42 The Wizards of Ryetown 

rather sharply. “ It was enough to make any one 
cross, to tumble over a stupid white hare’s umbrella 
when you were on very particular business, and then 
have a mere page say ‘ I told you so.’ ” 

“ You had really better take my advice,” he said, 
“ if you are quite sure you want to see this prince — I 
suppose you are more determined than ever now you 
have seen the gold armour, aren’t you ? ” The 
page’s voice was rather scornful as he said this, 
and Lavender would not for the world have owned 
that she was a little disappointed in the Prince’s 
behaviour. 

“ Of course I am,” said she. “ Are you envious 
of it? I think he’s magnificent!” She put on a 
contemptuous air now, for she knew she was in the 
wrong, and so she tried to persuade herself that it 
was some one else who was in fault. 

But the page only smiled in his funny quiet way 
and said: 

“Very well; I only wanted to know if you are 
still quite determined, for if you are I will help you 
all I can. Now, I know something about the ins 
and outs of this place, and you may take my word 
for it that the only way for you to see this prince of 
yours is to get into the castle, somehow — at least 
that’s the first thing.” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 43 

“ Which is the front door? I’ll go straight to it.” 
said Lavender. 

“ It’s no good your going to the front door,” said 
the page, “ there are no straight ways in this place, 
it’s all hooks and crooks and cats and witches. The 
best thing I can think of is for you to go to the cook 
and see if you can get a place as kitchen-maid. Fm 
told he’s in want of one.” 

“ Kitchen-maid, indeed ! ” cried Lavender. “ No 
thank you ! I will get into that castle by the front 
door or nowhere ! ” 

“ Try if you like,” said the page, “ but Julia will 
have you turned away, and turned into the worst sort 
of cockroach very likely.” 

“ Then I shall wait outside in the wood ! ” 

Just then the boy saw his master looking for him 
and beckoning, so he had to run after the procession 
quick as lightning. But he managed to turn back as 
he ran to shout something very earnestly to Laven- 
der over his shoulder. 

It sounded like, “ Beware of the wood ! ” 

“ Now, how very strange,” thought Lavender. 
“ What can there be in the wood ? ” 

“ Prepare for the wood ! Why, that is the very 
place we are going to, so you can come with us.” 

Lavender started and looked around. The black 


44 The Wizards of Ryetown 

cat and the white hare were staring at her expect- 
antly. She felt rather creepy. 

“ Dear me/’ said she, “ so is that what he said? ” 

The black cat stared still harder, and smiled. 
Have you ever seen a cat smile? It is not at all a 
pretty sight. It made Lavender feel still creepier. 

“ Come along, my dear, it’s no use pretending not 
to hear me,” said the cat. 

“ Thank you very much,” said Lavender nerv- 
ously, “ but I don’t think I’m going in your direc- 
tion to-day — some other time perhaps ” 

“ Well, you’ll have to come out of the castle, any- 
how,” said the hare fretfully. “ The Judge hates 
beggars and tramps and things. See, they’re com- 
ing now to lock the gates till the procession comes 
back, and you can’t stop here without an invita- 
tion.” 

“ I wasn’t thinking of such a thing! ” said Laven- 
der. This was not quite true, for she had intended 
to explain her position .to the fat seneschal, and ask 
him to admit her to see the Prince. 

“ Oh, I thought you was,” replied the hare with a 
malicious little grin. 

The seneschal now came up with the big keys in 
his hand ; she quite expected she would be invited to 
sit in the castle drawing-room to wait till the Prince 


The Wizards of Ryetown 45 

came back. You see she felt such a princess inside 
that she sometimes forgot that she looked like a 
rather untidy little girl, for her blue silk frock had 
been torn in the wood, and her hair was untied and 
she had lost one shoe. 

The courtyard was quite empty now except for the 
cat and the hare and the seneschal and herself. He 
did not look an unkind old man at all, rather the con- 
trary, so she went up to him and addressed him, put- 
ting on her very politest air. 

“ Excuse me, sir, but I shall be much gratified if 
you will allow me to have a word with you in pri- 
vate.' J 

She thought “ gratified ” sounded very fine, and 
she cast a most withering look at the cat and the 
hare: any respectable animals would have known 
they were not wanted, and would have taken the 
hint at once ; but they did not move, not a bit of it. 

The seneschal looked at Lavender: as I said, she 
was not very tidy for all her royal airs, and he did 
not know what to make of her, for he was none too 
wise, though an honest old man. So he rubbed his 
beard, and spoke slowly, like a lawyer. 

“ Why in private ? " said he. 

“ She's a beggar ! " said the hare. 

“ And a tramp," said the cat. “ She’s trying all 


46 The Wizards of Ryetown 

she knows to get into this castle, but as for honest 
work, not a bit of it. Tramp ! ” 

Lavender was too amazed at this attack to an- 
swer; for surely she thought they could not be so 
angry with her just for breaking the hare’s umbrella 
by accident, and of course she did not know that they 
were only obeying Julia’s orders. So she could not 
think of a single word to say in her own defence. 

“ Ah ! ” said the seneschal, nodding his head 
wisely, “ there’s certainly sense in that. Tramps 
ought not to have words in private, nor yet beggars.” 
“ Oh! ” cried Lavender, “ I’m not a beggar! ” 
“Lies!” said the cat. “You’ve been begging 
from us. Yes, Mr. Seneschal, she followed us all 
the way up here from Ryetown, and into this castle 
she means to get, — after the spoons, I shouldn’t 
wonder.” 

Lavender was so angry that if she had said a 
single word she would have cried, and to cry before 
that cat and that hare ? Never ! 

The old seneschal rubbed his beard and tried hard 
to think of something wise to say, but Lavender 
could bear no more, and holding her head very high 
to prevent the tears running over the edges of her 
eyelids, she walked out of the courtyard without an- 
other word. There was only one road, the one by 


The Wizards of Ryetown 47 

which she had come, and that led straight into the 
wood. 

“ Well, you are in a hurry,” said the hare; there 
were he and the cat scuttering beside her as if noth- 
ing had happened. 

‘‘How dare you say I was a beggar?” said 
Lavender in a fury. 

“ So you are,” said the hare ; “ you begged from 
us, you know you did.” 

“ I? ” cried Lavender, “I? Beg from you? ” 

“ Of course,” said the cat triumphantly. “ You 
begged our pardon.” 

Lavender was too angry to speak; she quickened 
her pace, but she felt their paws dragging at her 
frock. 

“ They might be two policemen,” she thought. 
“ There seems to be no help for it as long as we are 
in the wood, but as soon as ever we get to the town 
(for we must be going there surely) Til find a real 
policeman with buttons and a helmet and give them 
in charge or custody or whatever it is, and have them 
locked up.” 

The cat and the hare giggled to one another. 
“ So she wants one with Buttons ! ” said the 
hare. 

“ Good gracious ! Can’t I have even my thoughts 


48 The Wizards of Ryetown 

to myself ? ” cried Lavender, and gave her skirts a 
pull ; but the two clung like limpets. 

The threatened rain was really coming; the sky 
was full of clouds, and a little cold wind blew shrilly 



The Cat and the Hare Giggled. 


from the north, and shivered through the leaves; 
the great trees looked very grim now there was no 


The Wizards of Ryetown 49 

sunshine, and made the wood-paths very dark in- 
deed. 

" Whoo — 00 ! ” said the wind. 

“ The shower’s coming,” said the cat; “ we shall 
have to be quick to get home in time.” 

“ And my umbrella’s broken ! ” wailed the hare. 
“ I shall get wet through, and I catch such dreadful 
colds — shocking they are ! ” He sniffed plaintively. 

“ Serve you right for being so clumsy. You de- 
serve to catch cold this time,” said Lavender. 

Poor Lavender! She was so very tired and 

> 


The Two Clung Like Limpets. 

hungry, and her prince seemed so very far away, 
and these little animals were so tiresome, I don’t 
wonder she lost her temper. 

“ You always had a spite against me from the 
first,” said the hare with a sniffly sob, “ you know 
you had. You crept behind me when I was talking 



50 The Wizards of Ryetown 

politics, and listened for hours at a time, and you 
were going to tell Julia, I know you were.” 

“ What a story!” said Lavender. “Why, I 
never saw you or Julia till this morning, and I never 
crept or listened in my life. I couldn’t help being in 
the same road, and as for listening for hours at a 
time, why, as I say, I’ve only seen you once ! That’s 
what I said, once. Hours at a time ! A time ; one 
time; not two times. Oh, you are silly!” said 
Lavender. 

“ I can tell you this. I have no opinion of you, 
none whatever, so don’t ask me for one,” said the 
hare morosely. 

“ No lady, any one can see! ” replied the cat. 

“ Pooh ! ” said Lavender, which was rude, but it 
is hard to be polite to a very bad-mannered black cat, 
“ who cares what a hare thinks ? Or a cat ? I hate 
cats ! ” 

“ Witches’ cats ! ” said an awful, smiling voice. 
The cat was staring at her in a queer frightening 
way; her round green eyes shone out as bright as 
candles in the darkness, and she had grown ever so 
much taller. 

“ She must have put her pattens on,” thought 
Lavender. 

“ Witches’ cats! ” said the cat again; no doubt of 


The Wizards of Ryetown 51 

it, it was something more than pattens; she was 
growing and her face was nearly up to Lavender’s 
shoulder. A cold shudder went through Lavender, 
and she would have liked to turn and run and run 
and never stop till she got to the town, but she stood 
firmly. She was a princess, and it would never do 
for her to run away from a very silly hare and a 
deceitful black cat. No indeed ! 

“ Yes, I hate cats, and witches’ cats most of all ! ” 
she said, looking straight into those awful eyes, 
so firmly and proudly. The cat was obliged to look 
away. 

“ Shelter! shelter! the storm’s beginning! ” cried 
the hare, and the next moment he and the cat had 
seized Lavender and were running as fast as they 
could tear into the depths of the wood. Lavender 
put her feet together and pulled with might and 
main, but it was of no use ; their horrid little paws 
might have been made of iron. 

Bumpety-bump-bump over the stones and tree- 
roots ! Scratchety-tear through the brambles ! Lav- 
ender’s pretty silk frock was torn ; she could hear it 
go, though it was too dark to see. The cat’s green 
eyes were close to hers, and its cruel voice said in 
her ear, “ Witches’ cats ! ” 

But she only set her teeth and panted out as loud 


52 The Wizards of Ryetown 

as she could for want of breath, “ Yes, witches’ cats, 
and hares, and all such vermin ! ” 

She fancied the hare gave a frightened little gasp, 
and they did not speak again, only ran on faster and 
faster. Even the black cat was not really comfort- 
able with such a brave princess. 

But the rain fell in sheets, blinding and cold. It 
soaked poor Lavender’s thin skirts till they clung 
about her ankles; it trickled icily down her bare 
arms and neck, and her golden hair was drip- 
ping. 

“ I shall catch cold and die, and nobody will ever 
know,” she thought, and could not help one little 
sob, she was so sorry for herself. 

“ Crying, are you ? ” said the cat triumphantly. 

Lavender choked back her tears in a moment. 
“ Not a bit! ” she said firmly. “ I’m enjoying the 
run ; I love running! ” She managed to hum a little 
tune as they raced along, just to show how comfort- 
able and unconcerned she was; besides, it kept her 
teeth from chattering, and she felt sure this vexed 
the cat and the hare more than anything. 

“ I expect they’re going to kill me,” she thought, 
“ but I’ll never give in, never ! ” 

Just at that moment they came to a little hollow 
with very steep banks. Down they went with a 


The Wizards of Ryetown 53 

bump and a scramble, and fell at last into a hole in 
the ground. 

Lavender sat up and gave a great cry of surprise. 
No wonder ! For there she was, no doubt about it, 
in a witch’s cave ! 




CHAPTER IV. 

B Cave ant) a Ifcitcben 

'EE— U— OW! 

Ul Mee! MeC — U 

— ow j Mee — ow — ouse ! Mee 

— ow — ouse! ” 

For the first few minutes Lavender could see noth- 
ing, and could hear nothing but squalling kittens’ 
voices. Then she felt hard scrambly feet all over 
her, in her hair and over her neck, and over her feet, 
but she comforted herself with the thought that 
though cats might be horrid, kittens at least must be 
nice. 

The black cat struck a match and lighted a coffee 
pot full of grease which hung from the roof and 
served as a lamp. 

“ Mee — u — ow ! Mee — u — ow ! Gee — u — url ! 
Gee — u — url ! Pie — ce ! Pie — ce ! ” howled the kit- 
tens when they saw Lavender. 

“ I’ll give you pieces of her presently,” said the 
54 



The Wizards of Ryetown 55 

black cat to her skinny black kittens with white 
heads and tails, who were clamouring all over the 
cave and eying Lavender greedily with their evil 
lemon-coloured eyes. 

“ Yes, never fear,” said the black cat. 

“ You shall have her fingers, 

And you shall have her ears. 

And you shall have her little bones, 

To pick and eat, my dears ! 

And I’ve got a tin of pickled rats for you in my 
basket, too. But you can’t have your supper till 
we’ve had ours — so Grrr — rrr — 00!” Then she 
growled and scratched the kittens into the darkest 
corner, and Lavender thought she never could have 
believed kittens could be such horrid little creatures. 

And now at last she had time to look about her, 
but there was very little worth seeing. The cave 
must have been enormously large, for no walls were 
visible, only vague darkness on every side; and the 
floor was damp and treacly drops fell from the roof. 
On the wet floor stood a three-legged pot, boiling 
away of its own accord in a cloud of steam. There 
were no chairs, but as soon as the cat and the hare 
had taken their hats off they whistled loud, and 
several miserable goblins came running out of the 
corner where they had been playing antics to amuse 


56 The Wizards of Ryetown 

the kittens, and knelt on all-fours ready to be sat 
upon. The cat and the hare sat on the goblins’ backs 
and unlaced their boots quite unconcernedly, but 
Lavender could not bear to think of the poor crea- 
tures in such uncomfortable positions, and quietly 
whispered, “ I don’t want to sit down, thank you,” 
to her goblin when it made itself into a live stool 
and twisted its queer face towards her. 

“ Soup for supper again,” said the cat crossly, 
“ and that creature, Julia, knows we hate soup! ” 

“ It’s all her spite ! ” wailed the hare. “ If I’d 
known it was' soup again, I could almost have let 
this thing go ” — he pointed at Lavender — “ and let 
her get into the castle and all. That would have been 
a baddish job for Julia, I don’t think, don’t you? ” 

“ I wouldn’t have let her go ! ” said the cat vi- 
ciously, “ I’ve got a spite against the nasty little red- 
nosed thing — yah ! ” 

Now it was very cold and wet, and if Lavender’s 
pretty nose was a little pink at the tip, it was a 
pretty pink, and certainly not her own fault ; but the 
cat’s remarks hurt her feelings none the less for that. 

“ Now go on with your politics,” said the cat to 
the hare. 

“ Well, as I was saying,” the hare continued ex- 
actly from where he had left off talking in the 


The Wizards of Ryetown 57 

morning on the road through the wood, “ the Judge 
will get the Prince to marry Julia. For the Judge 
knows well enough this prince will have his king- 
dom and his castle by hook or by crook, and that’s 
fate and there’s no getting out of it, as everybody 
knows. But the question is, will he get it by hook — 
that’s rouse up the town that hates the Judge and 
his taxes, have a fight, rescue this thing” (with a 
nod at Lavender), “ storm the castle and pop Judge 
and Julia in a dungeon; or on t’other hand will he 
get it by crook — that’s marry Julia, wear gold ar- 
mour in processions, ride the Judge’s horses, tax the 
town, order the Judge’s men about, and live on the 
fat of the land, cheers, admiration, and laziness. 
Any one can guess which the Judge will choose, and 
any one who knows the Prince knows which he will 
choose, don’t they, eh ? ” 

“ Of course he’ll crook it and marry Julia,” said 
the cat. “ We’ll see to that. Even service under 
Julia is better than being kicked out to beg. Oh, 
yes, we’ll see to .that ! ” 

“ He’ll see to it himself and never thank you,” 
said the hare. “Just think what he gets out of 
it, too! He’ll get rid of this creature — give her to 
you for the kittens, I shouldn’t wonder.” 

" Glad to be rid of her on any terms, I should 


58 The Wizards of Ryetown 

say,” said the cat. Oh, what a vulgar animal she 
was ! I dare say you have noticed that when a cat 
is vulgar she is very vulgar — or perhaps we notice it 
more because most cats are so ladylike. “ Why, 
if I had a kitten with manners like Lavender’s, I’d 
drown her before her eyes were open, I would in- 
deed ! ” 

“ She squints too,” said the hare, giggling, “ and 
so clumsy ! Shocking ! ” 

“ And untidy,” said the cat. “ Just look at her 
gown ! ” 

‘‘If she wasn’t so slimmerky and bustering we 
might have her in the rebellion,” said the hare, “ for 
of course, being a republican, I don’t hold with 
judges nor princes nor any of these ruler-things at 
all, and I’ve as big a spite against the Judge as ever 
a hare had. If this thing had behaved civil there’s 
no knowing ; she might have been useful, so big and 
all.” The hare’s little voice quavered with un- 
certainty. “ I might have overlooked the squint and 
had her on our side.” 

“ I thought I’d have done any mortal thing to 
worry Julia,” said the cat, “ but I don’t know now 
which I hate worse, this thing or her. It’s very awk- 
ward, I ain’t likely to get no pleasure out of it — not 
nohow ! ” 


The Wizards of Ryetown $9 

“ We can get some fun out of teasing the Thing, 
though/’ said the hare ; “ it’s such a ninny.” 

Lavender did not know how to hold her tongue a 
single minute longer, though she pretended not to 
hear, for she was so angry she almost forgot how 
miserable she was. 

“ She’s gnashing her teeth ! ” said the cat, de- 
lighted. “ Oh, my tailtip, ain’t she annoyed ! ” 

“Yes, and the best of it is she can’t get out ! ” said 
the hare, “ because she don’t know the way and she’s 
too stupid to find out — much too stupid to find out.” 
He doubled himself up and sniffed and giggled and 
made faces with his queer upper lip — you never saw 
any one so rude. 

“ You’re quite mistaken” said Lavender, proudly 
enough to deceive him, though I won’t be sure about 
the cat. “ I know the way perfectly well. The rea- 
son I stay in this rather unpleasant place is that it 
amuses me to hear you queer creatures talking so 
funnily about things you don’t understand. You 
really must excuse my laughing now and then, but 
you really are so quaint.” 

Poor little Lavender ! Her teeth were chattering 
with cold and damp, she had not had a morsel to eat 
all day, and her feet ached till she hardly knew how 
to bear it. But in spite of all this she summoned up 


60 The Wizards of Ryetown 

a smile, and pretended to shake with laughter. The 
hare shuffled about on his goblin quite uneasily. 

“ She says she knows the way ” he snuffled nerv- 
ously; “ what ought we to do? Julia says we are to 
keep her here till she makes up her mind how to kill 
her. Whatever shall we do? She says she knows 
the way.” 

“ Rubbish ! ” said the cat grimly, “ she’s only pre- 
tending.” 

“ But she’s looking at the pot ! ” persisted the 
hare, now shaking with fear, “ and just suppose she 
picked it up, and stamped three times with her left 
heel, and suppose ” 

“ Hush ! ” shrieked the cat, boxing the hare’s ears 
till he rolled off his goblin into a corner. But Lav- 
ender was too quick for them. She threw the pot 
of soup into another corner, stamped three times 
with her left heel, and hidden by the cloud of steam, 
jumped into the great hole that opened in the floor 
just where the pot had been standing. 

She found herself at once in a dark and narrow 
passage, and off she ran down it, ran for dear life! 
Behind her she could hear the pat, pat, pat of the 
panting hare, and the soft thud of the black cat’s 
paws ; but she ran like the wind, over stones and rub- 
bish and sandheaps, through a curtain, up a nar- 


The Wizards of Ryetown 61 

row winding staircase, and there at the top was a 
great strong door ; through the chinks and the key- 
hole, beams of light shone. Was it locked? All de- 
pended on that! The black cat’s paws were almost 
in her skirts, but she gave one last pull, pushed hard 
at the door — it opened. She rushed in ! There she 
was, safe at last in the light and warmth of the 
Judge’s kitchen! For neither cat nor hare could 
open that heavy door when she had pulled it to be- 
hind her! 

It was a large kitchen she found herself in ; a great 
homely fire shone in the big range, so welcome to 
poor cold Lavender, and in the middle of the floor 
was a fat fiery-red little man in an apron and a white 
paper cap. 

This was the Chief Cook, and for a minute he did 
not see Lavender, for he was striding up and down 
the room at a great pace and reciting poetry. A 
thin long-legged scullion-man was picking bits out 
of a cake, while a frightened-looking girl peeled 
potatoes in a corner. She was doing it very badly 
and dropping the peel on the floor in a most untidy 
manner. 

Just as Lavender appeared the little fiery-red man 
smote himself on the forehead with the rolling-pin 
(which accounted for his not hearing the race up 


6 2 The Wizards of Ryetown 

the passage, or the sound of the door as Lavender 
slammed it in the black cat’s face), struck an attitude 
with his chin thrust out and his feet wide apart, and 
recited in a loud voice the following verse : 

“ Of all the nuisances I know, 

A worse than this you cannot show: 

A serving-maid as dull as dough. 

As clumsy as a buffalo, 

Whose every finger’s like a toe, 

Who breaks my dishes high and lowj 
She is my most contrariest foe, 

As sure as my name’s Rumbelow, 

Oh, serving-maid, I hate you so ! ” 

When he had concluded this extraordinary little 
verse, he turned round and round like a teetotum, 
saw Lavender, and staggered against the table, cry- 
ing “ Saved ! saved ! ” 

“ Well, I hope I am,” said Lavender, “ but it’s 
only by the skin of my teeth.” She felt a funny, 
choky feeling in her throat, and then she suddenly 
sat down in a chair and began to cry as hard as if she 
had not cried for a year. 

“ She’s a-crying,” said the potato-girl, dropping 
all her potatoes and staring open-mouthed. The 
long-legged scullion giggled. 

The cook had been just ready to scold Lavender 
for rushing into his kitchen in such a wild manner, 
but luckily he caught sight of the potato-girl and 


The Wizards of Ryetown 63 

boxed her ears instead, and commanded the scullion 
to pour out a good glass of gooseberry wine of his 
own brewing. 

“ For she’s tired and bothered and cold as any 
one can see, and to have you stand giggling there 
won’t do any one any good ! ” said the cook. 

Then the head cook rummaged about and found 
all sorts of nice things for her, soup and cake and 
jelly, and everything to do her good, so that in a 
very short time Lavender was sitting up again as 
bright and plucky as ever, and quite determined now 
she had got into the castle not to leave it again until 
she had seen the Prince. She had quite forgotten 
her former resolve about the front door. 

As soon as the head cook saw her looking lively 
again, he seemed immensely pleased. 

“ Speak when you’re quite ready, my dear,” said 
he, “and then we’ll begin, for it’s getting rather late. 
There’s no need to trouble about your wages, nor 
your character. Where you came from I know not, 
nor yet why you left. But there’s no time to talk, 
for it’s six or past, and what I should have done if 
you hadn’t called in, I don’t know — should have 
gone on composing for hours very likely. So jump 
up and help now, there’s a good girl ! ” 

Here was a state of affairs; he took her for a 


64 The Wizards of Ryetown 

kitchen-maid. Lavender had it on the tip of her 
tongue to tell him that she was a princess and the 
owner of a Lavender Garden, but on second thoughts 
it seemed as if in that case he might say he did not 
find princesses of much use in the kitchen, and might 
turn her out again into the enchanted wood where 
the black cat lived. She wanted to help him too, for 
he had been kinder to her than any one else had been 
since she had swum out of Lavender Garden into the 
world, and the little man was certainly worried ; be- 
sides, Lavender was not quite so inclined to despise 
lowly work and lowly people as she had been when 
she lived like a princess with nothing to do but amuse 
herself, and had never seen a witch’s cave. 

So she said nothing, but took the potatoes from the 
staring girl, found a big apron hanging behind the 
door, and peeled the bowlful in a very few minutes. 
She was here and there and everywhere after that, 
and no one would ever have guessed how her feet 
ached. She beat up eggs, washed plates, put the 
saucepans on the fire for the cook, and altogether 
made as model a kitchen-maid as heart could wish. 

She worked so hard, indeed, and was so quiet and 
cheerful, that the head cook’s face beamed with de- 
light, and he sent the potato-girl and the long-legged 
scullion home, telling them never to set foot in his 


The Wizards of Ryetown 65 

kitchen again. He was in such high spirits that he 
invented a brand-new dish for supper and wrote a 
ballad about it, made a little white paper cap just like 
his own for Lavender to wear, and put aside little 
bits off each dish for her supper before the tall castle 
footmen marched into the kitchen to carry it up for 
the supper in the great castle hall. 

Then when castle supper was over and kitchen 
supper too, what a washing and drying and polishing 
and putting away there was. 

Lavender really enjoyed it, with 
this kind little man smiling and 
praising her all the while. But 
it was getting very late, and after 
a while she got very sleepy. She 
had had the hardest, longest day 
she had ever spent in her life, you 
see, and the fire was warm and cosey. 

So at last, in the middle of polishing a great silver 
dish her eyes began to blink and blink and her head 
to nod and nod, and in spite of all her efforts she 
rolled off the low stool she was sitting on into a heap 
on the hearthrug, as fast asleep as any of the Seven 
Sleepers, 



CHAPTER V 

Ube princess Xavenber is Sent on an Erranfc 


L AVENDER never woke till morning. 

J It was a funny little bedroom for a princess 
to wake up in, too ! The ceiling sloped so much on 
each side that she could touch the slopes as she lay ; 
the little window was low in the wall, almost on the 
ground in fact, and a ray from the rising sun came 
up through it to the ceiling, and lighted up more 
than one big spider hanging from the beam in the 
centre of the roof. There was neither blind nor 
curtain nor dressing-table nor bath nor carpet to 
hide the oak boards or the wide cracks between 
them; indeed there was nothing in the room but a 
rough washing place, a little low bed, and Lavender. 

But though it was a queer little room, she woke up 
quite refreshed and rested from all her adventures 



The Wizards of Ryetown 67 

and troubles, except that her feet still ached just a 
little bit. 

In the morning sunlight she felt quite confident 
and cheerful, and slipped out of bed and into her 
clothes in the merriest way imaginable, then ran 
down the twisty stairs, which went round and round 
like a corkscrew, till she came right out at the bottom 
into the castle kitchen. 

The head cook smiled kindly as he said good- 
morning, so she tied on the big apron again 
and asked him if she might help to get break- 
fast. 

“ There are no eggs,” he said, rather helplessly — 
“ at least, I can’t find any.” 

Lavender ran hither and thither and looked on 
shelves and in cupboards and everywhere she could 
think of. 

“ I can’t find a single thing ! ” she said ; “ not even 
a piece of bread or a pound of butter.” 

“ We’re out of everything,” said the head cook ; 
“ they ate it all up for supper.” He frowned, and 
looked as miserable as such a rosy little man could, 
“ Out of everything, that’s what I am. Out of food, 
out of temper, out of any commodity you like to 
mention. It’s not my fault,” he explained, quite 
forgetting he was talking to a little girl whom he 


68 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

supposed to be his kitchen-maid, “ it’s all because the 
Judge is so unpopular. How I am to feed you and 
me I don’t know, let alone him and his men. But I 
made another poem this morning, while I was shav- 
ing.” He looked much happier as he said this. 

“ And that makes this 
week’s set complete. A 
dozen a week, two a day ex- 
cept Sundays, that’s my al- 
lowance. Should you like 
to hear it? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; indeed I 
should. That is if I can’t 
help to get breakfast?” 
said Lavender. 

He made no answer to 
that. First of all he gnashed 
his teeth, then he tore his hair, then he stamped 
round and round the kitchen till his face was crim- 
son and the dish-covers rattled on their hooks, and 
then he considered himself prepared to recite his 
poem. For it was an exciting poem, and it would 
never have done to say it through quietly like a 
school piece. So he set his feet wide apart, stuck 
his chin in the air, and roared out the following 



He Stuck His Chin in 
the Air and Roared 
out the Verses. 


verses ; 


6 9 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

THE TALE OF JOSEPH RUMBELOW 

Of all the nicest cooks I know, 

The best was Joseph Rumbelow. 

He toiled till eight o’clock at night, 

To do the things he thought were right. 

He caught a rabbit in the street. 

And cooked it very hot and sweet. 

But when his master saw the dish, 

Which turned out all a man could wish, 

His saucy nose he cocked up, 

And said, “ On this I will not sup, 

Methinks it fs the household cat. 

It is the cat, 

The household cat.” 

The cat ! Just think of that ! 

Much pained was Joseph Rumbelow, 

He did not bear him malice, though; 

He fetched fresh butter from the cow, 

Which is the best, as all allow; 

His eggs (oh, deem it not absurd !) 

He borrowed from the humming-bird, 

And in his fascinating way, 

Sweet flour he crushed from new-mown hay. 
Then all these things he ran to bake, 

And made a most skerumptious cake. 

His efforts were of no avail. 

His master said, “ Those eggs are stale. 

I feel they're stale, 

Those eggs are stale.” 

The eggs they were Not Stale! 

Now pale grew Joseph Rumbelow, 
Unkindness brought him very low. 

Though many tasty “ plats ” he tried, 

His master put the dish aside, 

The reason plainly could be seen, 


70 The Wizards of Ryetown 

His master was scriffinkly mean; 

He hated any food to taste, 

Eating, he thought, was willful waste; 

For bread is coin, and coin is gold, 

And gold in sacks is wealth untold. 

So thin this master soon had grown, 

He faded to a little bone, 

A little bone, 

A chicken bone. 

And Rumbelow was left alone ! 

Tears ran down the cook’s cheeks and off his fat 
chin as he repeated the last few lines, and Lavender 
shed a tear for sympathy. 

“ It’s a very sad poem indeed,” she said, “ and 
how beautifully you said it. It sounded as if it were 
true.” 

The head cook smiled in a very gratified manner ; 
then he looked round the kitchen mysteriously. 

“ It is true,” he said in a whisper; “ I am Joseph 
Rumbelow.” 

“ Oh, how strange,” said Lavender ; “ but you 
don’t look very pale yet.” The truth was he was 
about as far from being pale as any little man could 
be. He shook his head mournfully. 

“ It’s not what I am, it’s what I soon shall be if 
this goes on. That’s the beauty of being a poet; 
one is allowed to imagine if one does not imagine too 
much. Now the first two verses were real bare 


The Wizards of Ryetown 71 

facts, so I thought I might say what I liked, let my 
genius have its fling, so to speak, in the last.” 

“ How interesting ! ” said Lavender. “ The last 
verse was the best, I think. ‘ Skrifflnkly mean ’ is 
splendid.” 

“ Ah, yes ; it’s a good word,” said the cook, with a 
graceful twirl of a spoon as he said it, “ a very satis- 
fying word. But I often make words like that, in- 
vent them, you may say; it adds to the language, 
you know. Every little helps.” 

“ It seems very wonderful to me,” said Lavender. 
She had never met a poet before ; there were not any 
in Lavender Garden, more’s the pity. 

“ Yes, I am wonderful,” said the cook, and he 
made up his mind on the spot to promote Lavender 
to the position of Second Cook before dinner, he was 
so pleased. “ But no one appreciates me here. 
They say my verses make me unpunctual, and they 
scoff — yes, scoff. There is no other word for it.” 

“ That’s because you’re a genius,” said Lavender; 
“ they always are scoffed at, aren’t they ? At least I 
read they were, in a storybook.” 

“ It’s quite true,” said the cook, “ and the people 
upstairs are not geniuses.” 

He looked mysteriously round the kitchen again, 
peeped into the cupboards and the oven, and up the 


72 The Wizards of Ryetown 

chimney ; then he came and sat down close to Laven- 
der. 

“ You’ve so much sense — and appreciation of 
poetry/’ he said, “ that I’ve a good mind to tell you 
everything.” 

Lavender gave a little jump of delight. So many 
things seemed muddled up and queer about this 
castle and the people in it, that it was fine to think of 
having it all made plain. Besides, like all girls, 
whether they’re princesses or not, she loved a story. 

“ Oh, do,” she said ; “ there’s nothing I should 
like better, and I’ll listen so attentively.” 

“ In that case we’ll begin at the beginning,” he 
said. “ It began with them. They came here and 
took this castle.” 

“ Oh, dear,” said Lavender to herself, “ I shan’t 
understand very much if he tells the tale like that, 
but perhaps he’ll explain by and by. 

“ Who were they ? ” she said. 

“ The Judge and Julia, or Julia and the Judge,” 
said the head cook dramatically. “ Now we (that 
is, I and the other inhabitants) had lived in Rye- 
town for years and years and lifetimes and we had 
never seen this castle; did very well without it in 
fact. We never went into the wood for fear of 
witches.” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 73 

“ Witches ! ” said Lavender with a little start, for 
she thought of the black cat. 

“ Yes ; goblins too and creeping things,” the cook 
went on with a shudder. “ Well, I don't know 
where the Judge and Julia came from, but they came 
riding through the town on a wet Sunday, and 
alighted at the Puff and Dart, — I was landlord of 



They Ordered Wood-Pecker Pie. 


the Puff and Dart in those days.” Here the cook 
gave a sigh that made a volley of sparks fly up 
the chimney. “ They ordered wood-pecker pie — 
Ah, would I had never cooked that pie — pie — fry 

— sigh ” Lavender felt sure he was going to 

compose a poem when she heard him trying rhymes 
in that tiresome way, so she interrupted him hastily. 


74 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ Did they like the pie? ” 

“ Like it ? They loved it ! ! They adored it ! ! 
Ah, if I had only made it the least little bit heavy, or 
put in one pinch too much salt! However that is 
past, and the past is beyond recall ! ” He sighed 
again, heavily. “ After they had eaten the pie to 
the last crumb they rode up the hill. Next morning 
we heard noises in the wood; some said woodmen, 
some said rubbish, but we did not go too close for 
fear it should be warlocks crunching their bones. 
But the sounds went on for a week and then we woke 
up one morning to see this castle ; all the trees had 
been cleared away from round it, and there it was. 
The Judge and Julia said they’d found it.” 

“ How very strange,” said Lavender. 

“ It was, upon my word it was ! ” said the cook 
mysteriously. “ But the Judge and Julia took it and 
they lived in it, and being a castle, however it may 
have come there, town and country belongs to it, and 
they’ve ruled the place ever since.” 

“ They? ” said Lavender. 

“ The Judge and his wicked daughter. They sent 
for me to come and cook for them ; and I — who was 
free and happy at the Puff and Dart — have to cook 
for the meanest man in the world and that dreadful 
young witch Julia. As for the poor towns-people, 


The Wizards of Ryetown 75 

he taxes them and takes them for soldiers, and 
orders goods and never pays for them, till they don’t 
dare to call a single penny their own.” 

“ The towns-people must be rather silly, though,” 
said Lavender, “ to let themselves be wronged and 
taxed like that. Why can’t they just refuse to do 
it any more. There are thousands of them, and 
they look as strong and fat as — pigs ! ” she con- 
cluded indignantly. 

The cook shook his head in a doubtful way. 

“ It’s like this,” he said. “ When things are very 
provoking, and the towns-people have talked and 
talked about their wrongs week in and week out, and 
chosen their leaders and everything is ready for a 
nice well-arranged rebellion and for marching 
against the castle and throwing the Judge and Julia 
into their own dungeons and choosing a proper king 
— ra king I say, and no more judges for us — why, he 
just gives them a procession; then thinks one and 
another, ‘ I may as well wear my best clothes just 
once more before the fighting, when as likely as not 
they’ll be spoiled,’ and then after all the doings of 
course they’re meek and mild and tired, and so the 
rebellion never comes off.” 

“ How silly ! ” said Lavender. 

“ This time too, there’s this prince in the gold 


y6 The Wizards of Ryetown 

armour ; everybody for miles round has come to look 
at him — gold suits and black chargers and waving 
feathers for nothing do take simple peopled fancy, 
there’s no doubt about it. Besides, there’s another 
thing,” he whispered to Lavender behind the spoon 
“Julia knows what people are thinking about down 
there, before ever a word’s spoken.” 

“ How dreadful ! ” said Lavender ; “ it’s like the 
bl ” 

“ Hush ! ” whispered the cook, putting his hand 

over her mouth ; “ it is the Black C . When the 

town is very angry that creature is sure to come 
about the castle, and Julia has it up in her boudoir, 
and next day — well, the dungeons are full ! And if 
any one comes to complain, Julia only has to look at 
them. It’s quite enough, every one’s afraid of 
Julia.” 

“ I’m not,” said Lavender, “ nor of the cat.” 

“ I don’t mind it, except its eyes,” said the cook, 
rather nervously. 

“ I know,” said Lavender, “ but I’m not afraid. 
A piece of me is, but the other piece of me puts a look 
into my eyes, and when the cat glowers at me I 
glower back.” 

The cook looked doubtfully at Lavender, as if he 
were not quite sure whether this were truth or 


The Wizards of Ryetown 77 

poetry, but just then a great bell over their heads 
started clanging. 

“ That's for breakfast!” said he. “ Breakfast! 
And there isn’t an egg, or so much as a quarter of an 
egg, in the whole castle. Oh, what will Julia say! ” 

“ Never mind Julia,” said Lavender. 

“ But there’s the Prince too, and he’s so fond of 
eggs,” said the cook. 

“ Shall I go to the town and fetch some bread and 
eggs and things ? ” said Lavender, who was sorry 
for the nice old cook. 

“Will you now? Well, that is kind!” said the 
cook, accepting her offer so eagerly she was quite 
taken aback. But she took off her apron, smoothed 
her hair (having no hat she could not put it on, nor 
go to Ryetown in a white paper cap), and was just 
running out of the court-yard when she turned back. 

“Oh, dear, I was forgetting the money!” said 
Lavender. 

“ Never mind that, say it’s for the Judge,” said 
the cook hastily; off she ran through the enchanted 
wood, but it seemed all right, and as nice as could be 
in the morning sunshine with the birds singing in the 
trees, but all the same Lavender was glad to see the 
little red town at the bottom of the hill. 

There in the market-square were the two old 


78 The Wizards of Ryetown 

women just as before, only now they had chiefly 
butter and eggs and chickens and cauliflowers to sell 
instead of gingerbread nuts and sweets; those were 
only for holidays. 

“ How fortunate ! ” thought Lavender, “ that I 
should find them at once. I shall be back in good 
time now.” So she stopped when she got to the 
stalls and said good-morning very prettily. 

But the old women only stared at her ; then Mrs. 
Spice said to Mrs. Pot : 

“ Here’s this ridiculous little girl again ! ” 

“ So it is ! ” said Mrs. Pot. “ I wonder what 
she’s doing here.” 

“ That I cannot say,” said Mrs. Spice, in her 
snappy voice. 

“ Of course you can’t say,” said Lavender. “ I 
think you had better ask me, and then I’ll tell you.” 

“ She’s here for no good, that’s certain,” said Mrs. 
Pot to Mrs. Spice, exactly as if Lavender had not 
spoken. 

“ This isn’t a nice way to treat a customer,” 
thought Lavender to herself. But aloud she said 
politely, “ I have come to buy some eggs.” 

“ She says buy, she means steal,” said Mrs. Spice 
to Mrs. Pot. 

Lavender turned away from Mrs. Spice and spoke 


The Wizards of Ryetown 79 

to Mrs. Pot, who was by far the milder of the 
two. 

“ They are five farthings each,” said Mrs. Pot, 
brightening up all at once. “ How many do you 
want, Miss ? ” 

“ Oh, a few dozens, I think,” said Lavender. She 
had quite forgotten to ask the head cook about that. 

Mrs. Pot counted out the eggs into a brown paper 
bag, and did a great deal of ciphering on a small 
scrap of paper. 

“ It comes to a great deal of money,” she said, 
looking at the Princess suspiciously. 

“ They’re for the Judge,” said Lavender. 

Mrs. Pot immediately put back the eggs under- 
neath her stall, and looked at Mrs. Spice, who at 
once handed her a large umbrella. Mrs. Pot opened 
it wide and suddenly in Lavender’s face, crying 
“ Shoo ! Shoo ! ” as if she were driving a hen. 

“ Oh ! ” cried Lavender, quite shocked, “ that is 
rude of you when I only wanted to buy eggs. I 
shall speak to this policeman.” 

“ Where is he?” cried Mrs. Spice, jumping up. 
“ Oh, there he is ! Give me back my umbrella ! ” 
She waved it round her head, shouting “ Sammy! 
Sammy ! Take her away.” 

“ She’s after my eggs,” said Mrs. Pot 


80 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ She’s been picking and prying !” cried Mrs. 
Spice. Now Lavender had been interested watch- 
ing the fat policeman waddle across the square on 
his crooked short legs, and was wondering how he 
ever caught any one who chose to run away, and so 
she did not notice what the old women were saying 
to him, and was greatly astonished when he put a 



“ Shoo ! Shoo ! f> Cried Mrs. Pot. 


large clammy hand on her shoulder, and said : 

“ You come with me! I arrest you for picking 
and prying ! ” 

“ How dare you! ” she cried. “ Don’t you* see I 
am a princess, and I only wanted to buy some eggs. 
I was just going to call you to see that they served 
me.” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 8 x 

The policeman chuckled, and his chuckle was so 
very like a grunt that Lavender looked closer at him. 
Horror! He was nothing more nor less than a 
police-pig ! He pushed her along the street in front 
of him. To be pushed across a market square in 
custody is bad at the best of times, but when the 
prisoner is a princess, and the policeman a police- 
pig, you can hardly imagine how dreadful it is. 
Poor Lavender thought that every one was looking 



“ I Arrest You for Picking and Prying.” 


at her, but she held her head up and pretended not to 
mind, until she suddenly saw the page standing by 
a flower stall. Just at that moment the policeman 
caught sight of a great bunch of bananas hanging up 
at a stall. His mouth watered, he stared greedily 
with his little piggy red eyes, and finally he thrust 
Lavender into the page’s hands, saying : 

“ Here ! Hold her ! She is arrested for picking 
and prying. Fll be back in five minutes. ,, 


82 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Then he went up to the stall, and began devour- 
ing the bananas, skins and all, in truly piggy 
fashion. 

Poor Lavender stood with bent head and very 
rosy cheeks for, however little it is your own fault, 
it is dreadful to be seen by a 
page boy in such a very humil- 
iating position. But for all 
that it was comforting to see 
such a kind and friendly face. 

“ Well, this is a go ! ” said 
the page. “ But I’ll tell you 
what we’ll do. In half a 
minute that pig will sit down 
to eat the faster, and then he’ll be hidden behind the 
stall and won’t be able to see us.” 

Sure enough the police-pig soon sat down and 
chumped up bananas faster and faster. The page 
whispered “ Come ! ” and, taking Lavender’s hand, 
ran quickly past the greedy thing, who shut his eyes 
for fear he should feel obliged to follow. In two 
twinks they were over the bridge, in three twinks up 
the hill, and in five twinks were sitting cosily on a 
tree-trunk on the borders of the magic wood, where 
no police-pig dare enter for the life of him. 



CHAPTER VI 

3uUa tbe mitch 

A ND now tell me how you came to be in that 
L fellow’s paws ? ” said the page. 

Lavender told him all the story, from the time 
when he had called back to her “ beware of the 
wood ” in the castle courtyard. The cruel way the 
cat and the hare had behaved to her, her escape from 
their cave, how kind and how funny the head cook 
was, the rudeness of Mrs. Spice and Mrs. Pot, 
ending in her arrest by the police-pig; in fact, all 
about it. 

The page-boy listened very carefully to it all, then 
gave a long whistle and sat looking down the road 
with a wicked little twinkle of amusement in his 
eyes. 

“ What’s your prince doing all this time?” he 
asked at last. 

Lavender did not know what reply to make to 
this. 

“ I can tell you,” said the boy : “ he hunts and 
hawks with Julia (Julia loves to see things killed) 
83 


84 The Wizards of Ryetown 

— and he plays tennis with Julia, and does every- 
thing Julia tells him, and it doesn’t seem as if he 
wanted any other playmate at all.” 

“ I don’t believe it ! ” said Lavender hotly ; “ my 
prince would never forget me. He is good ! good ! 
my Prince Robin is. He does not know I am here, 
and I’m certain he does not like Julia. He’s only 
waiting for a kingdom to make me Queen of ! ” 
There was such a strange expression in the page’s 
eyes while she defended Prince Robin ; quite grave, 
and yet not unhappy. He looked down the road for 
a minute without speaking, and then turned his usual 
merry face to Lavender. 

“ But if he’s waiting for a kingdom, why is he 
wasting his time as a visitor in the wicked Judge’s 
castle?” he asked. 

“ Perhaps he is waiting for a good opportunity to 
wage war on the Judge,” said Lavender. 

“ It hardly seems a nice way to go about it,” said 
the boy. “ To be a man’s guest until you have a 
good opportunity to take his kingdom and his castle 
off him — well, it doesn’t seem quite open, does it? ” 

“ I am sure Prince Robin has his reasons. I can- 
not judge of them at present,” said Lavender, in her 
most dignified way ; but her heart went as heavy as 
lead, for after all it did seem as if it could not be 


The Wizards of Ryetown 85 

right to be so friendly with the Judge, if he meant 
all the time to take his castle off him; and on the 
other hand, suppose it were true what the white 
hare had said ; and he was going to inherit the king- 
dom peaceably by marrying Julia, and had forgotten 
Lavender Garden altogether. 

“ He’s horrid either way,” she said to herself, 
and could not keep down a sob at the thought. 

But the page was watching her, and as she could 
not possibly let him see her cry, she said in a very 
princess-like manner : 

“ You cannot understand a prince, because you 
are only a page, though you are a very kind boy in- 
deed, and I shall ask Prince Robin to give you a 
dukedom.” 

“ Thank you, Princess ! ” said the page, and he 
laughed, but not disrespectfully. “ But seriously, 
it seems to me that there is something very 
wrong up at that old castle. Pve made a 
good many friends in the town, considering I’ve not 
been here long, and every one of them has a story to 
tell about how cruel and unjust the Judge is, but 
they’re all afraid of him and Julia. I suppose they 
can’t help being cowards, and perhaps it comes of 
being too comfortable, but I expect they would fight 
right enough if they had a good leader. Now, as 


86 The Wizards of Ryetown 

your prince does not seem very anxious to do the 
work, I don’t mind starting a little rebellion on my 
own account. The Judge and Julia haven’t behaved 
over well to you, and I owe them one for that; be- 
sides my master is such a sleepy old fellow I’m just 
tired of being page to him, and I’m going back now 
to give notice, and to get my bundle of clothes. 
You’d like a kingdom, wouldn’t you, Princess? I 
should enjoy winning it, and then I could give it 
you. Of course it would be no good to a page; he 
wouldn’t know what to do with it, would he? ” 

“ But it wouldn’t be any good without my 
prince ! ” said Lavender. 

“No good without your prince? Really? Are 
you quite sure? ” said the page. 

“ Quite sure,” said Lavender. 

“ Wouldn’t you like it all to yourself? ” said the 
page. 

“ Not a bit,” said Lavender ; “ it would be as 
stupid as Lavender Garden.” 

“ Well, well,” said the page ; “ we’ll win it first, 
and then we’ll look out for a prince. I’ll be your 
page for the present.” 

“ Oh, will you ? ” said Lavender, quite surprised, 
for the page had been talking in quite a masterful 
tone, more like a prince than a page. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 87 

“ We’ll find a prince; oh, yes, we’ll find a prince, 
never fear,” he repeated, nodding his head. “ Re- 
member, I’m your page. Shake hands on it.” 

Lavender put out her little hand, and somehow 
the grasp of his made her feel quite sure that all 
would come right in the end. I suppose it was be- 
cause he had a very faithful heart, that merry 
page. 

“ But now I must go back and take leave of my 
master, and fetch my bundle, and have a talk to some 
of the towns-people,” he said. “ You need not be 
afraid of the wood in the daylight, and I shall very 
soon join you at the castle.” 

Lavender did not hurry. It was getting very late 
in the morning, in fact the town clocks were chiming 
ten, so it was no use running in the hope of being in 
time for breakfast. Besides she had brought neither 
butter nor eggs. 

“ It’s really the Judge’s own fault he’s so unpop- 
ular, and he deserves to wait for his meals,” she 
thought, and she walked into the enchanted wood 
without a tremble, singing a little tune and thinking 
of her very own page. “ I don’t believe there’s a 
thing in the world that page’s afraid of. He 
wouldn’t talk about the cat’s eyes like that dear, 
silly, old cook. I don’t believe he’d run away from 


88 The Wizards of Ryetown 

the cat, or the hare — hateful things ! I wish I could 
meet them now, I’d give them a piece of my mind ! ” 

“ Oh, do ! Oh, do ! ” yelled out a squeaky little 
voice in the long grass by the wayside. Lavender 
started, there’s no denying it, and for all her recent 
bravery she hoped she might never have to walk in 
the wood alone again. 

“ Oh, Princess ! Princess ! ” cried the voice in a 
squeal of entreaty, “ do give it me, it’s just what I 
want ! ” 

Lavender looked up and down and round about 
and could see no one, but at last she noticed the 
grasses moving in rather a strange way close under 
the hedge. 

“ I’m here, Princess ! ” Now she knew for cer- 
tain it was the hare’s voice. “ Come through the 
grass and you’ll find me. Please bring it me quick, 
or I know I shall die.” 

Lavender pushed her way through the long wet 
grass, and there was the white hare in a wretched 
plight indeed. For one leg had been caught in a 
cruel iron springe, and he could not stir without 
hurting himself, but rolled his eyes towards Laven- 
der, and looked such a sad object that she forgot 
all her wrongs in a moment and ran towards him 
as quickly as she could. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 89 

“ You poor thing,” she cried. 

“ Have you got it ? ” whimpered the hare. 

“ Got what ? ” 

“ That piece of your mind you were talking about 
just now. You said you would give it me, you 
know, and if I had it I might be able to think of a 
way out of this. You have such a clever mind. 
Even the cat says you’re as clever as Julia, and she’s 
clever herself, is the cat.” 

Although she had such good reason to be angry 
with the hare, Lavender could not help being rather 
pleased at such a compliment and felt a little less 
cross with him as she opened the trap and unloosed 
his white leg from its teeth. 

“ How did you get into such a scrape as this?” 
she said. For if a hare that could talk, and knew 
what you were thinking before you said it, could 
not take care of itself, what hare could ? 

“ It was Julia ! ” whispered the hare, as if he were 
afraid the trees were listening. “ I let you out of the 
cave, you know — told you the way on purpose, be- 
cause I wasn’t sure but what you might win in the 
end — and that cat told on me ! Just like a cat ! So 
this morning, when I was going on a visit to my 
mother-in-law, this horrible springe jumped out of 
the ditch at me, and I should have stayed here till I 


90 The Wizards of Ryetown 

died, very likely, if you hadn’t come by with that 
mind of yours.” 

Lavender tied up the hare’s leg as well as she 
could, and helped him along the road. He was 
really very badly pinched. 

“ I’ve always wanted to be your friend,” sniffled 
he, “ even when you were most unkind to me. But 
I’m such a poor weak creature, and daren’t do as I 
like, and you are so unpopular it’s as much as my 
nerves are worth to be seen about with you. You 
won’t tell any one I’m your friend, will you? ” 

“ Certainly not ! ” said Lavender. “ I don’t much 
care for friends of that description; the thick-and- 
thin and the fire-and-water sort are the only ones I 
want. So, if you think my company so dangerous, 
perhaps you’d better be off.” 

“ Yes, perhaps I’d better,” snuffled the hare, “ but 
I’m a poor weak creature and not so discreet as I 
might be. Now please say good-bye, we might 
meet somebody.” 

Lavender turned her back on the thankless little 
animal and walked away towards the castle. She 
had not gone very far, however, before she heard the 
little thud, thud of the white hare running behind 
her, and in a minute he overtook her and panted up 
to lay a damp paw in her hand. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 9 1 

“ I’d quite forgotten to shake hands,” he said, 
“ but my memory is so very bad. And won’t you 
call some morning when there’s no one likely to be 
about ? ” At this he scudded off as fast as his lame 
leg would allow him. 

“Poor little coward,” thought Lavender; “just 
fancy asking me to go and see him when there was 
no one about. Why, I’d almost as soon call on 
Julia ! There would be some excitement about that 
at any rate, if all accounts are true.” 

She was soon to find out. 

She arrived at the castle without any more adven- 
tures. She wondered what the head cook would 
say, for she had certainly been away a long while, 
for adventures take longer than buying eggs, any 
day of the week, but as the cook himself confessed 
to not being over punctual, and as poets are seldom 
too severe on other people’s faults, she was not really 
much afraid when she walked into the castle court- 
yard at half-past ten. She looked up at all the win- 
dows to see if by any chance Prince Robin might be 
looking out at one of them. No, he was nowhere to 
be seen. But just as Lavender was passing a little 
stairway which ran along the wall at the eastern end 
of the courtyard, a voice said : 

“ Stop, kitchen-maid ! ” 


g 2 The Wizards of RyetowH 

Lavender forgot for a moment that she was a 
kitchen-maid, and thought the voice was calling 
some one else, so she jumped very much when she 
felt a tap on her shoulder, and the most dreadful 
voice she had ever heard, said: 

“ Kitchen-maid, stop ! ” The black cat’s voice 
was nothing to it. 

Lavender shook off the touch impatiently, for of 
course she did not like to be tapped on the shoulder 
like that, and looking up, she saw standing above her 
on the little stairway, Julia the young witch herself, 
with a little whip in her hand. She was dressed in 
the same strange fiery robe of silk as she had worn 
in the procession, and the little black goblins were 
hurrying hither and thither upon it in a manner that 
made Lavender quite dizzy to see. But Julia her- 
self was far more terrible than any goblin. Have 
you ever seen a vulture? It is a bird with a cruel 
beak, and yellowish skin on his face, and keen, cruel 
eyes. Now Julia was like a vulture, but there was 
this strange thing about her, that though she looked 
so cruel, you could not call her ugly, only terrible 
and wicked. Her eyes were half closed, and a light 
flashed out between the lids, and when these strange 
eyes looked down into Lavender’s candid blue ones 
the Princess felt like a little bird she had once 


The Wizards of Ryetown 93 

read about who met a snake in the wood and could 
not draw its eyes away from the snake’s eyes, but sat 
and looked and looked until the snake darted upon 
it and ate it. 

“ New kitchen-maid ! ” 

If Julia’s face was dreadful her voice was more 
dreadful still ; it was exactly as if an adder were to 
speak. She smiled too, and when she smiled it 
made Lavender feel as if she knew all about her ; 
about the page and the Prince and the police-pig and 
all. What was the use of struggling? She might 
as well give in at once. This was exactly the effect 
Julia generally had on people. 

“ You have been a long while away, kitchen- 
maid. Where have you been? ” said Julia. 

“ Errands for the cook,” said Lavender faintly. 

“ That’s a story,” said Julia, not angrily, but in 
a coolly insolent tone. Even a young witch may 
make a mistake sometimes, and she made a mistake 
here. For Lavender’s courage and presence of 
mind all came back when she heard herself accused 
of story-telling, and she drew herself up, and the 
light came back into her eyes, and she quite left off 
feeling like a little bird. 

“ How dare you say such a thing ! ” she cried ; 
“ it is you yourself who are telling an untruth.” 


94 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Julia was so surprised at her failure to subdue 
this little golden-haired girl with a tear in her frock 
and no hat or gloves, that she lost what remained of 
her temper; and a witch, you know, loses half her 
power when she does that. 

“ You low kitchen-wench ! ” she exclaimed in a 
fury, “ I can do what I will to you, I can call you 
what I like! You will believe in my power when 
you are in the lowest dungeon. There I shall starve 
you. Starve you to death. And there’s a nice 
little loop-hole I can watch you through. How I 
shall enjoy it ! ” 

But say what she would, Julia had lost her power, 
for the present at any rate. 

“ Don’t talk such nonsense ! ” said Lavender, 
“ Tve been in your dirty cat-cave, and found my 
way out of it too, and I don’t care a single pearl for 
your dungeons. As for starving, you don’t get any 
too much food yourself I’ve heard.” 

She suddenly thought of the head cook’s poem 
and burst out laughing. 

His master was skriffinkly mean ! ’ ” she 
quoted, rippling with laughter. 

And food is coin, and coin is gold ! ’ ” 

Julia was quite at a loss ; she had never met any 
one who had laughed at her before: it really was 


The Wizards of Ryetown 95 

very trying. She hated Lavender more than any 
one else in the world, and would have given anything 
to have turned her into a beetle on the spot and 
stamped her to death with her heel upon the stones, 
but try how she would she could not remember the 
proper spells. It confuses a witch more than any- 
thing when people laugh at her, and really brave 
people have very little to fear. Now Julia panted 
and raged and the little black goblins on her dress 
scampered about as fast as motor cars, but she could 
think of nothing better than to call the seneschal and 
order Lavender off to prison. 

The seneschal came slowly; he never did any- 
thing fast even for Julia, and when he came up 
Julia was glaring at Lavender trying to freeze her 
with horror, and Lavender was saying : 

“ It’s perfectly absurd ! I shouldn’t think of 
going to prison ! Besides I’m not kitchen-maid any 
longer. I resign and discharge myself on the spot. 
You have no right to put me in prison. Oh, you’re 
old enough to know better.” She shook her head 
wisely at Julia. 

The fat seneschal did not quite know what to say, 
so he rubbed his beard and said “ There’s reason in 
that.” It was his favourite saying. He was not 
an unkind old man, and did not like putting little 


96 The Wizards of Ryetown 

girls in dungeons; and he loved an argument. So 
he repeated : 

“ There’s reason in that.” 

“ Reason ! ” cried Julia, so angry now she would 
have liked to fly at Lavender and tear her to snippits. 
“ Reason enough ! This wretched little insect has 
been out for three hours without leave, and now 
she’s come back empty-handed.” 

“ And there’s reason in that,” said the seneschal, 
hesitating. 

“ I should think there was” said Lavender. “ Do 
you know why I was so long and why I came back 
empty-handed ? ” 

Well, no one had an answer to that. 

“ It was because no one would let the Judge have 
so much as an egg without ready money. I was 
looked upon as a thief in the town just because I 
had come on your errands! I will leave you now, 
for fear any one should think I was friends with you 
— witch! ” 

The seneschal pretended Lavender was too quick 
for him to catch, though she did not really walk away 
very fast, and as Julia could not very well carry 
Lavender off to a dungeon with her own hands, she 
called to a group of country-people who had col- 
lected round the gate to see what was going on. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 97 

“Stop her! Clods and slaves !” cried Julia. 
“ Do not let that girl escape ! She is a thief ! Stop 
her! ” 

The people stared at one another. They were 



afraid of Julia, it is true, but after all they were on 
the outside of the gate. Lavender did not hesitate, 




98 The Wizards of Ryetown 

she walked up to the country people, and said quietly 
and politely : 

“ Please to allow me to pass, good people,” and 
without a word they made way for her, for on an 
occasion like this it was very plain to be seen that 
little ragged Lavender was a real princess. 

So she walked out of the castle under Julia’s very 
nose and nobody dared to touch her. The country- 
people were ready to worship any one who defied 
Julia, but they were not at all prepared to defy her 
themselves, so they got out of the way of her eyes 
and the sound of her voice as quickly as ever they 
could, and Lavender was left alone on the highroad, 
with no one in sight but a pair of dear little water 
wag-tails bowing to one another in the dust. 

For a little time she marched on bravely with 
sparkling eyes, thinking how grand it was to have 
defied a witch everybody else was so afraid of, but 
after a while a lonely feeling came over her because 
of the doubt which the page had put into her mind 
as to whether her prince at the castle was behaving 
quite as nicely as a prince ought to do. Besides, she 
had had such unpleasant adventures in that wood 
no one could wonder that she wished for some com- 
panion as soon as the quietness of the trees had 
come all around her. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 99 

But who was this with a bundle on his back and a 
flat cap with a button on the top? Who but the 
merry page, and no one could be lonely where he 
was. 

“Odd! That was just the way with Prince 
Robin/' thought Lavender. 


CHAPTER VII. 

ZTbe plot of tbe Mooblanb people 

HE page came up at a great pace. His cheeks 



JL were glowing, his dark eyes sparkling. He 
made his bow to Lavender and did not wait for her 
to tell him a word of all that had befallen her that 
morning but began eagerly as soon as he was near 
enough. 

“ I’ve been so busy ! Everything’s ripe for the 
Revolution! The Town Council of Ryetown will 
meet in the Market Hall to-morrow and there will 
be a great gathering of the townsfolk in the square 
in the evening. This afternoon I must be at the 
gathering of the Wildwood people who have 
promised to join, every man (I mean every bird and 
beast) of them, and I have the task of putting a little 
sense and spirit into their flighty little heads ! ” 

“ I must come with you,” said Lavender, for she 
did not mean to be left alone in that wood again, not 


she! 


“ I don’t know whether they’ll let you in,” said 
the boy doubtfully. “ They are so suspicious, and 


IOO 


IOI 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

you being kitchen-maid at the castle too, I don’t 
know how we’re going to make them believe that 
you don’t belong to the other side.” 

“ But they must ! For I must come; and I’m not 
kitchen-maid any more. I gave myself a moment’s 
notice this morning, for Julia wanted to put me in a 
starvation dungeon, and if the seneschal had not 
been such a nice old slowcoach I should have been 
there now. You must tell the woodland people 
that I know lots of useful things about the castle, 
like the secret passage and that sort of thing. But 
I do hope that, if they get in, they won’t hurt that 
old seneschal or the head cook — they’re nice.” 

“ They may get into the castle,” said the page, 
“ but I doubt it ; there are so many things these little 
animals shy at. Some are afraid of men, and how 
am I to get them to march with the townsfolk if half 
of them shake in their shoes at the sight of Simon 
the gamekeeper, and the other half when they get 
within gunshot of Peter the rabbit-dealer, who is 
quartermaster-sergeant? Why, I had to arrange 
their meeting on a different day just because of all 
their whims, — and nine out of ten of them are 
scared out of their senses at your friend the black 
cat, and one twiddle of her whiskers would knock 
the bottom out of the whole insurrection, as far as 


102 The Wizards of Ryetown 

they’re concerned, in a minute.” The merry page 
looked quite a picture of the care-worn general as he 
said this, but he soon smoothed the puckers out of 
his brow. 

“ Well, well,” he said, “ I suppose all leaders have 
difficulties of much the same sort ; at least the books 
say so. Come along, Princess, we must get you in 
somehow — this is the way.” 

The great meeting of the woodland rebels was to 
be held at Mr. Fox’s. He lived in a fine sand-bank 
in the north end of the Fox Holts. The windows 
and doors were like those you make when you build 
sand castles by the seashore, and there were two 
low walls going all round it with a dry moat be- 
tween. The page and Lavender jumped the moat 
and stepped over the walls. There at the door stood 
the sternest robin you ever set eyes on. He was the 
doorkeeper. 

“ Who is this ? ” he asked, looking at Lavender 
and puffing out his handsome red waistcoat. 

“ This is the Princess Lavender, come to join us,” 
answered the page. 

“ Are you guarantee for her faithfulness, oh, 
great general ? ” 

“ I am,” said the page, with dignity. 

“ I don’t think I can admit her to the meeting 


The Wizards of Ryetown 103 

until I have spoken to the other leaders,” said the 
Robin. “Will you, sir, accompany me?” 

So Lavender had to stand outside, feeling rather 
put upon, while the page went in. She could hear 
a great gabbling and talking inside, and presently 
Mr. Fox himself looked at her through a win- 
dow. 

“ Though what he thinks he can find out by that 
is a mystery to me,” said Lavender to herself. 

Then there was more talking, and at last an 
escort, consisting of another robin, a white stoat, 
and a pouter pigeon, came out, arranged themselves 
one on each side of her and one in front, and brought 
her into the assembly of the rebels. In the middle, 
by the page’s side, stood the fox in a high plumed 
hat and spectacles ; the dormouse, who wore a leather 
belt fully an inch wide and a sword in a silver 
scabbard; the rat, in a field-marshaks uniform he 
had bought cheap after the last war; a fat old toad 
who could not find anything to fit him, he was so 
bumpy and nubbly, and had to put up with a second- 
hand service revolver; the white hare, wearing a 
knapsack which was for ever slipping off his narrow 
shoulders ; and many other animals, who almost all 
wore some piece of military finery, and none a com- 
plete suit of anything. 


104 The Wizards of Ryetown 

The fox was in the chair, and a very elegant figure 
he made. He bowed to Lavender : 

“ On the representation of our revered leader/’ 
here he stopped to make a very fine bow to the page, 
“ that you are no longer a member of the household 
of the Oppressor, and that you are one with us in 
that you have also wrongs to be redressed, I — we — 
er, well — er — in fact — in fact, we should like to hear 
what you have to say for yourself.” 

Like many accomplished speakers, Mr. Fox ran 
through his eloquence too fast, and his speech came 
to an abrupt and unexpected end. 

Lavender’s Wrongs (the rebels always wrote 
them like this with a capital W) were on the tip of 
her tongue, for they were none of them more than 
two days old; she hardly knew which to tell them 
about first, and I’m afraid she mixed up the black 
kittens and Julia, and the police-pig and the cook’s 
story now and then, but on the whole her speech 
made a great impression, and they all cheered her 
heartily when she had done. They made her a dep- 
uty-admiral-lieutenant, and a Welsh rabbit of high 
lineage who was present christened her on the 
spot with a name of sixteen syllables which 
meant She-who-is-not-afraid-to-meet-the-eyes-of- 
the-young- Witch ! 


The Wizards of Ryetown 105 

Then the page stood up, and went over the plan 
of campaign so clearly that even the silliest, callow- 
est fledgling there could not fail to understand, and 
he answered all their questions with the greatest 
good humour, and explained away all their difficul- 
ties and all their fears; so for the time the meeting 
was quite grave and sensible. 

But now the rat, who had been on tip-toe with 
anxiety to speak all through the latter half of the 
page’s speech, stood up. He had come in very 
late, and he was still panting, and his very tail was 
trembling with indignation and fear. 

“She’s been at me again,” he panted; “I have 
had to run for my life. Yes! I started out with 
the woodpigeon — she married a first cousin of my 
mother’s — the gentlest creature! As we were on 
our way, walking peaceably along, the cat dropped 
down from a branch, — and ” — after a telling pause 
he pulled a gray feather out of his waistcoat pocket — 
“ this is what is left ! ” 

He shed a real tear as he said it, but also noted 
with satisfaction the effect his oratory had on the 
meeting, and especially on that troublesome waverer 
the hare, who was easy to convince, but was always 
coming unconvinced again. 

Lavender was most indignant. 


io6 The Wizards of Ryetown 


“ Poor pigeon ! ” she said. “ I never heard of 
such tyranny. It’s downright abominable. But 
I'm not afraid of the cat, and I’ll march in front and 
drive her before me. She can't frighten me, you 
know." 

“ It’s not that I'm frightened ," said the rat has- 
tily. “ I’m only unselfish. It's my wife I’m think- 
ing about, and what would become of her if any- 
thing happened to me." 

Lavender could not help smiling at that, and Mr. 



He Pulled a Gray Feather out of His Waist- 
coat Pocket. 


Fox asked the rat whether he had any more infor- 
mation to lay before the meeting. 

This was rash, for rats are so long-winded. 

"She has told you about the secret passage and 



The Wizards of Ryetown 107 

the goblins,” he began, as if he owed Lavender a 
grudge for doing so, “ but there are many here who 
do not know the great wrong we rats have suffered 
from the Judge’s perfidy. Some time ago, he made 
a compact with us, not long after he first came to 
the castle. He promised us as much food as we 
could find, and no traps, if we would never repeat 
anything we saw or heard in his household. For 
he could keep things from the townsfolk, and even 
from the servants, but no one can keep a secret from 
a rat — no, no, we’re too clever by half! We kept 
our part of the bargain; rats may have faults, I 
should be the last to deny it, but nobody can say 
they do not keep their word. But there is an end 
even to their endurance, and for the last month — 
can you believe me? For the last month, there 
hasn't been enough to go round! The working 
rats have been on short commons, their children 
starving on crusts and cheese-parings, for many and 
many a poor rat married and took a house on the 
faith of the Judge’s word and the size of his larder. 
Is such a thing to be borne, I ask you. I say again, 
is such a thing to be borne ? ” 

“ No, indeed ! ” squeaked the hare. 

“ Oh, get on ! ” grumbled the toad. 

“ Let him alone,” said a pheasant ; “ I knew him 


lo8 The Wizards of Ryetown 

at school. He’ll never finish to-day if you interrupt 
him.” 

“ No, indeed, I shan’t,” replied the rat, looking 
as if he thought this rather a compliment, “ I take 
weeks to tell a story properly.” 

“ Never mind telling us a story,” said the fox, 
“ for I think we are all now convinced that it is 
time the Judge and Julia came to an end. What 
we now wish to know is whether you, or any other 
wood-dweller, has any comments to make on the 
plan of attack which our leader the page laid be- 
fore us at the last meeting, and has again to-day 
most carefully explained.” 

This speech of Mr. Fox’s (and he was the only 
business-like fellow among all the wood-people) 
was the signal for every animal to make as many 
comments as he could, and so it happened that there 
was no one left to listen, except the hare, who was 
soon quite bewildered by the noise; a deaf old 
squirrel, who was sound asleep ; the page, and Lav- 
ender. Each of these was surrounded by a group 
talking as fast as possible. 

Suddenly the hare, who happened to be facing the 
door, gave a quavering little squeak of intense ter- 
ror, his pinky ears went snow-white and his great 
eyes stuck out of his head with fear. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 109 


The gabble of voices ceased in a moment, and all 
heads turned as if by clockwork. 

There in the doorway were the sharp ears and the 
gleaming eyes of The Black Cat ! 



There in the Doorway Were the Gleaming Eyes 
of the Black Cat. 



1 1 o The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ Who let her in ? ” said the fox sternly. 

No one answered. Mr. Fox wiped his spectacles, 
and tried to appear cool. 

“ Let me listen humbly to your plans, oh, brave 
rebels, ,, said the cat, speaking slowly and rather 
huffily. The animals were all frozen with terror; 
the pouter pigeon fainted. 

“ Why do you not continue your interesting con- 
versation, she went on, “ and tell us who is to come 
to an end besides the Judge and Julia? ” 

“Begone!” said the Fox, but she took not the 
least notice. 

Lavender looked at the page to see if he would 
interfere, but he did not ; perhaps he was testing the 
courage of the assembly. 

“ Traitor! White Traitor! ” called the Cat softly 
to the miserable hare, who quivered as if he had 
been struck. “ Come here ! I think I will kill 
you!” 

The hare took a trembling step towards her. 

“This is unbearable!” cried Lavender and the 
page, both together, as they dashed at the cat. But 
they tripped and stumbled among the crowd of terri- 
fied little creatures, and when they were clear of 
them the cat was far up in the tree-tops, laughing 
and sneering, and urging on the horrid little gob- 


1 1 1 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

lins, who were at her beck and call, to pull their hair 
and hinder them. So they turned back again to 
Mr. Fox’s house. 

Not one animal was left! All that told of an 
meeting was a scuttering which got further and 
further off. Lavender and the page were alone. 
They looked at one another. 

“ Poor little things ! ” said Lavender. 

“ Poor indeed ! And pretty stuff to make a regi- 
ment out of. I shall have to give them up as a bad 
job, but I’m afraid they’ll have to reckon with Julia 
for to-day’s work.” 

“ I do believe I shall never find my prince,” said 
Lavender, as nearly as possible crying. 

“ You still want the Prince in the gold armour, 
and the kingdom, do you ? ” said the page. 

“ Of course I do ! ” said Lavender. 

“ Well, I’ll win the kingdom for you if I can, 
and see about the Prince afterwards, as I said be- 
fore,” said the page. 

“ But what am I to do now ? ” said Lavender. 

“ You had better go home,” said the page. 

“ But I’ve nowhere to go to,” said Lavender. 
“ I haven’t a plate or a pillow to call my own.” She 
nearly wept, it sounded so pitiful. 

“ I’d forgotten that.” 


1 1 2 The Wizards of Ryetown 

The page looked quite serious for a minute or 
two, he was thinking so hard. 

“ I have it ! ” he cried at last. “ The Peterkins ! 
They are a charming family in the town. Every- 
one agrees that they are the kindest and best of peo- 
ple. One fellow called them the perfect family. 
And Mr. Peterkin would do anything for me; he 
said so, kind old fellow! I shall ask them to have 
you on a visit for a few days. Mr. Peterkin’s a 
grocer. Then, when I have got the army together, 
and everything is ready, I’ll come or send you my 
messenger, and you shall march with me at the head 
of the army against the castle.” 

“ Then we’ll look for the Prince, and when we’ve 
found him we’ll ask him to lead us against the Judge 
and Julia, won’t we?” said Lavender. 

“ Something of that sort,” said the page. 

But, for all this enticing prospect, Lavender was 
not quite contented. 

“ I don’t know that I care about perfect people,” 
she pouted, “ and grocers are common. I know I 
shan’t like being there.” 

The page was not offended, though the Peter- 
kins were great friends of his. 

“ You must have somewhere to go, dear Prin- 
cess,” he said, “ and I really can’t think of any other 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 1 3 

plan. Just look what a lovely smooth hill! Let’s 
run.” 

No one could be cross long with a boy like that, 
and by the time they had raced down the hill and 
crossed the bridge into Ryetown, every bit of Lav- 
ender’s ill-humour had vanished, and she looked like 
Princess Rosebud instead of Princess Lavender. 





CHAPTER VIII 

XTbe peterfeins 


W HAT a queer place ! I’m certain I’ve 
never been here before,” exclaimed Lav- 
ender, as she and the page entered one of the old 
streets of Ryetown. Hitherto she had only been in 
the market square, and this was in quite a different 
part. It was a crooked little street, and not very 
wide. There were large handsome houses, with 
serving maids looking out of the windows, which 
showed that rich people lived there; little thatched 
houses, with barefooted children playing about the 
door; good shops, poor all-sorts shops, all mixed 
up together, and nearly all the buildings leaned to- 
wards one another, as if they were having friendly 
chats across the way. Perhaps this was why it was 
called Whispering Street. 

The shopkeepers of Whispering Street had a 
funny custom of coming out of their shops to give 
samples of their goods to passers by, and the chil- 
dren had soon received a pocket-knife, a tiny tin box 
of moist sugar, a nectarine, a pastry dog with cur- 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 1 5 

rant eyes, a tin watch which told the time most 
accurately if you put the fingers on the correct num- 
bers, and a story-book. I think you will agree with 
me that this was a pleasant street to take a walk in. 

Presently they came in sight of a grocer’s shop. 
It was more like fairyland than a commonplace busi- 
ness building. For the windows projected far in 
front of the house, and on the leads above had been 
planted a garden of flowers; roses and carnations 
surrounded the house with scent which floated up 
and down the street ; climbing geraniums, both white 
and pink, were nailed on lattice work right up to 
the house-roof, while clematis and jassamine flung 
themselves down in a lovely tangle and surrounded 
the window below. It is not often you see a house 
like it in a crowded street. 

Then in the window were charming things. 
Curly glass vases with gold designs on them held 
the chocolates and candies, the pounds of rice and 
sugar were tied with flowing ribbons, white, or blue, 
or green, as best suited the colour of the paper. 
There were jam and honey pots in pretty woven bas- 
kets, jars of preserves where the rosy fruit floated 
in clear syrup, crates of candied ginger, quaint 
Chinese tea-boxes, and a huge box of sugared bis- 
cuits open on the counter from which all young cus- 


1 1 6 The Wizards of Ryetown 

tomers (yes, and old ones, too, if they liked sugared 
biscuits) were invited to take what they liked. It 
was nicer than the nicest grocer’s shop you know, 
even on Christmas Eve, and this, you know, was 
summer-time. 

The assistants were all good-natured, jolly fel- 
lows, who liked plum cake, and could tell you the 
stories of all the pictures on the Chinese tea-boxes. 
They wore nut-brown suits and white aprons, and 
every one of them had a Chinese silk handkerchief 
tied in a neat bow round his white collar. 

The master of the shop, Mr. Peterkin himself, 
was a kind pinky man, round as a butter-tub. He 
wore a prune-coloured suit, and no apron at all, and 
he reminded one of a fat soft raisin before it is 
chopped up for Christmas pudding. He skipped 
about his shop as busy as a bee, arranging a ribbon 
here, and a jar there, or gathering flowers for the 
assistants and himself to wear in their buttonholes, 
or cheering them all at their work with songs ; and 
every song had a chorus in which even the errand 
boy could join. 

Lavender took a fancy to him at once, and quite 
forgot he was a grocer, he looked so kind. 

As soon as Mr. Peterkin saw the merry page, he 
tossed his handkerchief into the air with delight, and 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 17 

darted out on the pavement and shook hands so 
heartily the page was nearly shaken off his feet. 
After this burst of joy, Mr. Peterkin quieted down a 
little, made a low bow to Lavender, and showed 
them both into his shop, dancing on before them 



without turning his back (for that he would not 
have considered polite to a lady) in a way which 
was really clever in any one so plump. 



1 1 8 The Wizards of Ryetown 

They passed at once through the shop into a com- 
fortable large parlour, where Mrs. Peterkin was 
sitting, making frills for her little boys’ jackets, and 
her welcome was hardly less warm than her hus- 
band’s, though she did not throw her handkerchief 
in the air when she saw them. 

When they were all seated, Lavender in a great 
velvet armchair, and Mr. Peterkin had poured out 
a glass of cowslip wine for each, the page asked if 
he might leave Lavender in their care for a few 
days. 

“ To be sure, to be sure ! ” said Mr. Peterkin. 

“ To be sure, to be sure! ” said his wife, “ and I 
hope you can make yourself happy in a very homely 
place, my dear,” she said to Lavender, with such a 
pleasant voice and smile that the little Princess quite 
loved her. But the page did not tell the Peterkins 
she was a princess, lest it should put them about 
and make them nervous. 

“ I am sure we would do anything in the world 
for you,” said they both to the page. “ To have 
this young lady as a guest is a pleasure, a great 
pleasure, but if you want anything difficult or dan- 
gerous or expensive, mind you come to us for it, or 
we shall be quite hurt ! ” 

The page promised he would, and bade them 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 19 

good-bye, and they let Lavender go with him to the 
shop-door alone to see him off. 

“ I am going to rouse up this sleepy town,” he 
said, “ find out the brighter spirits, and set all in 
order for an assault on the castle. When all is ready 
I shall come or send my messenger for you. Will 
that suit you, Princess? ” 

“ Yes, yes,” said she, and then whispered in his 
ear, “ I’m sorry I was cross about the Peterkins, 
when you were taking so much trouble about me. 
And Pm sure I shall like them. Good-bye ! Good- 
bye, page ! ” 

The page gave her a very bright and happy look, 
and said “ Good-bye ” cheerily. 

Lavender wished he need not go away, but off he 
set, raising his flat cap from his stiff red hair, and 
strode away down the street. 

How he did remind one of Prince Robin, to be 
sure ; really he was so like him it hardly seemed to 
matter that he was only a page! 

“ How you are dreaming ! ” said Lavender to her- 
self quite crossly. “ Come, wake up ! ” 

So she gave herself a little shake and went back 
to the parlour, where cosey Mrs. Peterkin gave her a 
picture-book to look at, with the “ Blue Belt ” and 
“ The Three Billy-goats Gruff ” in it, and whenever 


120 The Wizards of Ryetown 

she looked up at Mrs. Peterkin, Mrs. Peterkin 
looked down at her so comfortably, and everything 
was so quiet that Lavender had a queer feeling as if 
being a princess in Lavender Garden, and all the 
rough adventures and hard words she had endured 
since she swam into the great, rough world down 
the river were all dreams, and she had always lived 
in a cosey back-parlour and been smiled at by a pleas- 
ant fat old lady. 

Presently Mrs. Peterkin began to cast little 
glances at the tall old clock which stood against the 
wall and ticked so solemnly. Rai- sins, Bis- cuits, 
Rai- sins, 5i^-cuits, that is what it always said. 
Soon it struck five, and then Mrs. Peterkin put her 
sewing away very neatly in an old bureau, and laid 
the cloth for tea. She had only just finished this 
task, and was measuring spoonfuls of tea into a fat 
china tea-pot, while Lavender was toasting a tea- 
cake, for she begged to be allowed to help, when 
the door opened and the three boys came in 
from school. Snups, the eldest, was rather dark 
and gloomy-looking, and always avoided having his 
hair cut, if he possibly could. He looked a little 
sulky and did not shake hands at all willingly when 
he saw how very kindly his mother looked at Laven- 
der, for he was inclined to be jealous of fair people, 


The Wizards of Ryetown 121 

for some silly person had told him that a dark skin 
was not so attractive. “ Oh, dear/’ thought Laven- 
der, “ I shall never get on with him! ” 

Buttons and Perky were ordinary, nice little lads, 
who made a great deal of noise with their boots and 
giggled when Lavender smiled at them. But before 
tea was over, they were very friendly, and even 
brought their white mouse in for her to see, and let 
her have it in her hand for a minute, for they were 
most trusting children, and Lavender was delighted 
to play with the little fellows. 

But Snups was different; he was as old as her- 
self, and must be made friends with more slowly. 

When tea was over, and lessons done, the whole 
family sang songs and glees, and Mrs. Peterkin 
played for them on the piano, and Snups played 
beautifully on a very old fiddle. Then they had a 
Good-night hymn, and took their candles and went 
to bed, and Lavender felt that this was a homelike 
place indeed. 

Her little white bedroom had a faint, sweet 
smell of lavender, and she sighed as she fell asleep 
and dreamed of Ebony and Ivory serving in a gro- 
cer’s shop, and she would not speak to them because 
she thought it such a vulgar thing for them to do. 
Then Prince Robin came and shut her up in a fiddle- 


122 The Wizards of Ryetown 

case for punishment. The sound of watering carts 
in the street woke her early, and she wondered if 



They Brought Their White Mouse in for Her to See. 

she would ever sleep in her dear yew-tree bower 
again, or see Ebony and Ivory to tell them how 
much more sensible she had grown. 




The Wizards of Ryetown 123 

But for all her queer dreams she came down to 
breakfast as bright as a bee; the parlour was fresh 
and cheerful, the flowers on the table new-gathered, 
and the things to eat perfectly delicious. There 
were pigeons’ eggs and frizzly bacon, and apple 
jelly, and brown bread and honey, and hot cakes, of 
Mrs. Peterkin’s own making, and other nice things 
more than I can remember. 

Little Perky rang a bell which sounded into the 
shop, and at that in came Mr. Peterkin, bowed to 
Lavender, kissed his wife’s plump hand, and sat 
down at the other end of the table. When grace 
had been said they all fell to, and then, fingering a 
letter, Mr. Peterkin said to his wife: 

“ I have a pleasant piece of news this morning, my 
dear. Here is a note from dear Goody ; she is com- 
ing from Rye-harbour this morning, and will be here 
to dinner. I’m sure we shall all like that.” He 
beamed round the table ; Mrs. Peterkin beamed back 
at him, and said she should be delighted to see 
dear Goody, and would be sure to make some of 
Goody’s favourite cheesecakes, and she hoped she 
would pay them a long visit. The two little 
boys, however, fidgeted and kicked one another’s 
shins, while Snups frowned and bent over his 
plate. 


1 24 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ Pray, who is Goody ?” asked Lavender mod- 
estly. 

Mrs. Peterkin turned to smile at her. 

“ Goody is our dear niece. She is called Goody 
Two-shoes, because she is so virtuous and moral, and 
her shoes are the very smallest made in Ryetown. 
Her morals and manners are a pattern to all boys 
and girls — especially boys.” She looked at the two 
little ones as she said this, and immediately they 
began to drink from their pretty milk-cups to hide 
their faces, and then their mother said, “ Now, can’t 
one of you repeat the nice piece of poetry Cousin 
Goody made about the greedy little boy who ate too 
much bread and jam.” They both said at once that 
they could not remember it, and would be late for 
school if they tried. 

But Snups looked up and asked if he might cut a 
sandwich to take with him, as he wanted to study 
botany in the woods in the dinner hour. 

“ What ! And your cousin Goody coming ! ” 
said Mr. Peterkin, in mild surprise. “ You had for- 
gotten, I am sure ! ” 

“ No, I hadn’t,” said Snups. He really was a 
sulky boy. 

“You are a very naughty boy, I am afraid, 
Snups,” said Mr. Peterkin. “ No, I cannot allow it ; 


The Wizards of Ryetowii 125 

you need Goody’s improving conversation, even 
more than your brothers. It is boys like you that 
Goody labours to improve.” 

Here Snups muttered something that seemed to 
have the word “ prig ” in it. 

“ Not another word,” said Mr. Peterkin severely, 
getting quite rosy and cross. “ Goody is all that is 
beautiful and respected.” 

The good grocer returned to his shop almost in a 
bad temper, and Buttons and Perky were quite sub- 
dued, though Snups was not, but smacked his books 
into his satchel in a truly defiant way. It is odd 
that after this Lavender did not look forward to see- 
ing Goody-Twoshoes at dinner time; perhaps it was 
because she liked the Peterkins so much as they 
were she did not want any addition to their 
party. 

The boys now started for school, and Lavender 
asked if she might go a little way with them. Now, 
kind Mrs. Peterkin had found a pretty sun-hat for 
her to wear, and found, too, that Buttons’ dancing 
pumps just fitted her feet, which were pretty little 
feet, if they were not- quite so small as Goody’s. 

So the young people all started off together, But- 
tons on one side and Perky on the other, with Snups 
walking gloomily in front, stubbing his toes against 


126 The Wizards of Ryetown 

the stones and kicking up a cloud of dust in an un- 
pleasant, broody fashion. 

Lavender was too sensible, however, to take any 
notice of his rudeness, but chattered away to But- 
tons and Perky and just left Snups to his bad tem- 
per. The little boys did not like their school very 
much ; they told her it was kept by a Mr. Tuppenny, 
who was very strict and never smiled, and even, it 
was said, used a dictionary for a pillow. At any 
rate, he lived in a cottage with a green gate, and 
walked among his bees, reading the heaviest, queer- 
est, dullest books you ever saw, and knocking down 
the larkspur with his cane. 

When Lavender saw the green gate she turned 
back, for she did not want Mr. Tuppenny to pounce 
out and take her into school ; she had far too much 
to think about to find time for lessons. So she said 
good-bye to the little boys and watched them join 
their schoolmates; but she did not go straight back 
to the town, for she was in no haste at all to meet 
Miss Goody Two-shoes. So, instead of going 
straight back to Whispering Street and the parlour, 
she took a turning down a pretty lane, determined to 
have a quiet country walk. 

“ But the very first witchy thing I come to I shall 
turn back,” she said to herself. “ I want a little 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 27 

peace now, and no more adventures till my page 
comes for me.” 

But it is a fact that one cannot always choose 
whether one will have adventures or not, and even 
when one is on a visit to a peaceful shopkeeper in a 
peaceful street, if you are the adventure kind, adven- 
tures will find you. 



CHAPTER IX 

Xavenfcer /ll>afees XTwo IRew Bcquatntances 

O NCE out of sight of the school, Lavender 
wandered along the lane enjoying herself very 
much, and after a while she came to a most inviting- 
path that led away from the road between green 
meadows and golden cornfields. So very inviting 
it looked that she turned down it without thinking 
twice and walked happily along. 

“ It looks as if there would be flowers further on/' 
she said to herself, “ and at any rate there’s no sign 
of enchanted woods or a witch’s cave or anything of 
that sort.” 

True enough, she soon came upon some lovely 
flowers, and she picked a great bunch of them, think- 
ing to herself, “ I can give them to Mrs. Peterkin 
because though she has plenty of clematis and roses, 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 29 

they look prettier upon the outside of her house, and 
I’m sure she’ll like these for the dinner-table, espe- 
cially with a visitor arriving ! ” 

As she was thinking this, and looking down 
in the ditch for late violets, lo, and behold ! she nearly 
ran her head against a red brick wall. The path, 
now enclosed between high hedges, ran straight up 
to it, without a turning either to right or left. So 
there seemed nothing to do but turn back, for there 
was neither door in the wall nor gate in either of the 
hedges. 

“ This is very odd,” thought Lavender. “ Why do 
they have a path at all if it doesn’t go anywhere ? ” 

She looked up the wall and down the wall and 
along the wall. 

“ I expect there’s something wonderful on 
the other side,” she thought. “ How tiresome it is 
to go for a walk and come to nothing but a wall. It’s 
as bad as Lavender Garden. I do wish I could see 
over.” 

“ You’d like to see the view over there,” said a 
roaring voice behind her. She started, and no won- 
der, for a harsh-looking cow was leaning over the 
hedge and staring at her with a sarcastic expression. 
The ugliest sort of cow, red with a large white face. 

“ How you made me jump,” said Lavender. “ I 


130 The Wizards of Ryetown 

shall never get used to all this thought-reading, it’s 
most ” 

“Most what?” said the cow in a cruel, lowing 
manner. Lavender, like most girls, was not very 
fond of the society of cows, except with a reliable 
introduction. 

“ Most — perplexing,” she added hurriedly, “ but 
everything’s perplexing in this part of the world. 
This path for instance ; what’s the use of a path that 
goes to nowhere and comes to nothing? ” 

“ It comes to an end,” said the cow shortly, “ and 
at the end there’s me. You couldn’t want anything 
more than me, could you? ” 

Here she rattled her horns in the hedge in such 
an unpleasant way and roared, “ Hey ! What ! ” so 
loud that Lavender longed for a nice high gate to 
get behind. 

“ I didn’t mean to offend you, I was only wonder- 
ing whether any one ever climbed over that wall,” 
she said quickly. “ I should so much like to see 
what is on the other side.” 

“ Then you’re a Paul Pry, or as you’re a girl you 
may be a Poll Pry,” said the cow, “ and I’ll give you 
a lesson. 

“ Over you go ! 

And then you’ll know ! 

I'll help you — So ! ” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 3 1 

As she said this she gave her head a sideways toss 
fit to make one shudder. Lavender shrieked; no 
wonder, for the cow leaped the hedge and alighted 
behind her as easily as a great four-legged bird. And 
now she saw her close to, Lavender was more afraid 
of her than ever, for she saw that she was a cow 
with a crumpled horn. She edged to the side of 
the path furthest from the cow, and smiled nerv- 
ously. 

“ I’m afraid I must not stay any longer this morn- 
ing/’ she said, trying to pass by. “ I’m staying with 
friends in Ryetown and they will be expecting me. 
So good- day, madam ! ” 

“ No, you don’t,” said the cow in a most un- 
pleasant, sneering way. “ I have one more observa- 
tion to make before we part. Why do you think I 
have taken the trouble to jump that hedge? ” 

“ Something horrid, I’m sure,” thought Lavender, 
feeling extremely frightened. But she did not speak, 
and so she gave a terrible jump when the cow an- 
swered just as though she had seen into Lavender’s 
mind. 

“ Horrid, eh ? Not at all, oh, not at all ! ” said the 
cow with a sarcastic twirl of her tail. “ On the con- 
trary, I’m going to kindly send you where you want 
to go so much, to admire the view, you know, on the 


132 The Wizards of Ryetown 

other side of that interesting wall. One, two, three, 
and away ! Over you go ! Good-morning ! ” 

Lavender tried again to slip past between the cow 
and the hedge, but it was no use, for with a roar the 
creature came after her, and almost before Lavender 
knew it, she was up in the air, high on the crumpled 
horn, higher and higher still, over the wall, and down 
again into a great big geranium bed ! She was not 
heavy, so she did not break any bones, but she was 
startled, and shaken quite out of breath, so that it 
was two or three minutes before she sat up and 
looked about her. 

“ How very rude animals can be,” she said as she 
stood on tip-toe to get her hat, which had caught on 
the branch of an apple-tree. “ It seems to me I’m 
not safe anywhere, for even cats grow big while I’m 
looking at them, and cows and cats and hares answer 
me when I’m only thinking. One can’t help having 
thoughts, I suppose, unless one has no mind — -it 
might be a good thing to have no mind in this part 
of the world if one could manage it — the cows and 
cats might leave one alone then.” 

By this you may see that Lavender was still con- 
fused by her fall, but presently she began to look 
about her to see what sort of place it was she had 
come to so unwillingly. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 133 

“ At any rate I’m over the wall and out of her 
reach,” she said, “ and that’s something! And what 
a strange place this is! It looks like a farm-yard, 
only I never heard of a farm-yard with scarlet ge- 
raniums planted round it. Oh, yes, it must be a farm- 
yard, for there are sheds and a rick. But no! 
It can’t be, for there’s a summerhouse in the corner. 
Why, it’s made of green lattice-work ! How pretty ! 
And there are three windows in it, and steps, and a 
porch, and a bell, and a knocker! No, it can’t be a 
summerhouse ! It must be an ordinary house, sum- 
merhouses don’t ever have knockers ! ” She walked 
up to this puzzling place, and the more she looked 
about her the queerer the whole place seemed. It 
was a very large, muddy, untidy farm-yard, with a 
deep border of scarlet geraniums all round it, except 
where the barns and buildings were. 

She now stood in front of the absurd arbour-house, 
or house-arbour of green lattice-work. 

“ I’ve half a mind to ring the bell,” thought she, 
feeling quite brave again, for it was certainly 
pleasant to have such a strong, high wall between 
herself and that cow. “ I wonder who lives here, I 
expect it’s an animal of some sort, though it looks 
more like a person’s house. Still the animals here 
are so peculiar and so forward I am not surprised at 


1 34 The Wizards of Ryetown 

anything- they do, or anywhere they live. I think 
I’ll ring.” 

So she tripped up the steps and rang. 

No sooner had the last tinkle died away, than a 
most terrific bellowing, fit to burst the walls, was 
heard, the door was banged open, and a lively young 
bull rushed out past Lavender and round the farm- 
yard three times, then stood in front of her, pawing 
the ground and tossing his tail. 

“ It’s no use my being polite,” thought Lavender, 
while he was rushing round. “ I tried that with 
the cow, and if I’m frightened he’ll be sure to 
toss me, so I must put on a brave face, however 
I feel!” 

So she drew herself up, looked haughtily surprised 
at the rushings and tail-tossings, and when he had 
quite finished, said quietly with a slight bow : 

“ Mr. Bull, I believe?” 

When the bull heard this stately little girl speak- 
ing with such a royal air, he felt rather silly, and 
left off twirling his tail. Then he looked down at 
his hoofs (which were sadly in want of blacking) 
in an embarrassed manner and remarked that the 
flies were unusually troublesome this summer. 

“ Quite unusually so,” replied Lavender. 

The bull bowed again. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 135 

“ Very likely you are surprised to see me,” went 
on Lavender, “ but being in your neighbourhood I 
thought I would call. What a very pretty place you 
have here. ,, 

The bull looked more calfish than ever at this, and 
made a still deeper bow to hide his blushes. It was 
as much as ever Lavender could do to keep from 
laughing, but she was never rude except when witchy 
things were rude to her, or something of that sort. 
A grown-up real princess, of course, is never rude, 
or angry, or frightened, but Lavender was not 
grown-up. 

“ I should so much like to look round your gar- 
den,” said Lavender. She thought that sounded 
nicer than farm-yard. The bull bowed again, be- 
cause he could not think of the right thing for a bull 
to say to a lady who asked to look round his garden. 
But he led the way round the farm-yard, Lavender 
picking her steps between the mud and the gera- 
niums. 

“ I suppose you are very fond of geraniums, as 
you have so many, but do you never plant any other 
sort of flower ? ” said Lavender. 

“ I don't like calceolarias,” said the bull. 

This did not seem an answer at all to Lavender’s 
remark, and conversation languished for a little. 


136 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Bulls are rather difficult to get on with, unless you 
know them very well. 

“ So kind of you to think of calling/’ he said pres- 
ently. “ I’m a rough, surly fellow and don’t see 
much company. People don’t understand my ways, 
you know, they think I’m dangerous — so stupid, isn’t 
it?” 

Lavender looked at his thick neck and rolling eyes 
and sharp white horns, and heard the switching of 
his tail, and didn’t much wonder that he was oc- 
casionally misunderstood, but luckily the bull was a 
comfortable ordinary animal, who did not know what 
you were thinking about unless you told him. 

“ As for the society of ladies — especially young 
ladies — why, they won’t come within a mile of me, 
as a rule. So you see I do appreciate your dropping 
in like this.” 

Now Lavender was very straightforward, and did 
not like to be thought better than she was ; it hadn’t 
seemed wrong, rather a joke in fact, to pretend she 
had come to call for the pleasure of seeing the 
grounds, but when the bull took it so seriously and 
thanked her for coming, it made her feel rather a 
sneak. 

“When you say I dropped in,” she said, rather 
ashamed, “ I’m afraid that’s just what it was. In 


The Wizards of Ryetown 137 

fact, I can’t say it was my own doing at all that I 
came here. Not but what I am most pleased to make 
your acquaintance,” she added, “ but you see the 
cow ” 

“ The Cow — The Cow ! ” roared the bull, and 
all his previous roars had been whispers and songs in 
comparison with this roar. He stood in front of 
Lavender, his red eyes gleamed, his mane stood out 
stiff, his tail was like a pump-handle with wrath, he 
looked more like a wild beast than a pleasant ac- 
quaintance. 

“ I couldn’t help it,” said Lavender, trying not to 
tremble. “ Really I couldn’t. She flew at me with- 
out the least excuse, and before I knew anything 
about it I was in your geranium bed. She never 
asked my leave at all.” 

“ Is she your friend ? ” roared the bull. 

“ My goodness, no!” cried Lavender. “Friend 
indeed ! You didn’t understand ” (no wonder, when 
he was bellowing so). “ Why, she’s the rudest an- 
imal I ever met, and that’s saying a good deal con- 
sidering what I’ve gone through in the last few days. 
Don’t you understand she tossed me here — tossed me 
over your wall as if I’d been a cricket ball. A pretty 
thing for a real princess to be tossed by a common 
crumpled Cow! ” 


138 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ Princess ? ” shouted the bull. “ Real ? ” 

Lavender nodded, it was the easiest way when he 
made such a noise. 

“A real princess? And she tossed you? Why, 
it’s the very funniest thing I ever heard ! ” 

And he sat down in the mud and kicked his feet 
in the air and went off into the most remarkable fit 
of laughter that Lavender had ever beheld. Every 
now and then he would gasp out : 

“ A princess ! ” and explode again. Lavender 



And He sat Down in the Mud and Kicked His 
Feet in the Air. 


watched him gravely, for she did not see the funny 
side as he did. At last her patience was exhausted, 
it seemed as if he would go on for an hour. 

“ If you don’t get up,” she said almost crossly, 


The Wizards of Ryetown 139 

u I shall go home this minute. I can’t see anything 
to laugh at.” 

“ Oh, but you don’t know her,” chuckled the bull, 
nearly choking in his effort to control himself, “why, 
she’d go down on her knees to a title, yes, that great 
fat pollypoddle! and if she knew you were a real 
princess, she’d lie down and ask you to use her for 
a doormat. And now she’s tossed you over the wall 
and never so much as asked you to have a cup of tea 
with her. Oh, this will pay her out for Julia, it will, 
it will indeed ! ” 

The bull opened his mouth and roared and bel- 
lowed till Lavender was fairly deafened. But she 
did not snub him this time, it was too exciting. 

“Julia!” she cried, “do you know Julia? Oh, 
do please stop laughing and talk.” 

The bull pulled up a large geranium and wiped 
his eyes with it (no wonder, thought Lavender, that 
he gets so excited when he keeps all this scarlet 
about) and stood up properly on all his four legs and 
began. 

“ In the first place,” he said earnestly, “ are you 
a friend of Julia’s or not? It makes things so much 
easier if we know where we stand before we begin.” 

“ I quite agree with you,” said Lavender, “ so I 
tell you frankly that I’m helping in a revolution 


140 The Wizards of Ryetown 

against the Judge and her, so you can tell if we are 
friends.” 

“ No, really! ” said the bull. “ Why, I was in a 
revolution against them too, not so very long since. 
Now that is strange, and we ought to be chums — 
shake hands, won’t you ? ” 

Here he held out a very muddy hoof, which Lav- 
ender shook heartily and without shrinking, for she 
was not so fastidious now as she had been in Laven- 
der Garden. 

“ The cow was in it too at the beginning,” went 
on the bull. “ She and I had organised the wood- 
creatures and made all our plans. She had only just 
come into the neighbourhood, and was most enthu- 
siastic. We were delighted to have her, for without 
her the revolution was rather a hopeless affair, for 
you know what wood-creatures are. But the cow ” — 
here the bull sank his voice to a mysterious whisper 
— “ the cow knew the Word.” 

“ What word ? ” said Lavender. 

“ Cows with crumpled horns know a great deed,” 
said the bull, “ they’re near relatives to witch-cows ; 
and this one knows the word that will turn Julia’s 
spells against herself, make her into a caterpillar, 
or a beetle, or anything small and crushable like that. 
We had arranged to storm the castle, and then the 


The Wizards of Ryetown 141 

cow said when all the storming was over she would 
walk in, say the word, and Julia would turn into a 
crawling thing, and we could all stamp on her. Good 
plan, eh ? ” 

“It sounds all right,” said Lavender; “why 
didn’t it succeed? ” 

The bull lashed his tail and pelted round the yard 
bellowing “ Julia ! ” every time he passed Lavender 
— he really was sadly wanting in self-command. 

“ Oh, Julia knows a thing or two,” he roared as 
he slowed down. “ How she got wind of it at all is 
more than I can tell, but get wind of it she did.” 

“ / know,” said Lavender, “ the cat ! ” 

“ Not a black cat with green eyes ? Not a picking, 
jigging, mincing mouser with green eyes and a bas- 
ket ? ” roared the bull. 

“ Yes, yes,” cried Lavender, “ that’s the one. 
She’s a spy! She’s Julia’s cat, and she knows what 
you’re thinking about, and tells Julia. I know, I’ve 
been in her claws.” 

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed the bull, com- 
ing to a standstill, “ then that’s plain enough. I’d 
seen a cat about our place for days, but cats are such 
small things I didn’t take much notice. If I’d only 
known, I could have stepped on her by accident, or 
tossed her or anything; what a pity I didn’t. Well, 


142 The Wizards of Ryetown 

the end of it was Julia came to call — what do you 
think of that? Came in a four-in-hand with foot- 
men, and outriders, and cockades, and a cardcase, 
and she drove up in style to that cow’s front door so 
that all the neighbours could see, and sat in the draw- 
ing-room and talked (so the cow says) about the 
weather, and what sweet ornaments there were on 
the sideboard and what a beautiful bonnet she had 
seen the cow wearing in Ryetown on market-day, 
and how she had often thought what a pity it was 
such an elegant cow should be wasted in a country 
place. She flattered and wheedled in that fashion 
till that idiotic cow’s head was completely turned, 
and from that day to this she has been Julia’s most 
devoted admirer, and won’t hear a word of rebelling. 
But even if we had known the word,” the bull added 
with a sigh, “ we might not have been able to do any 
good with it, for it has to be said by some one 

“ Who has no fear 
Of far or near, 

Of spell or force, 

Of pain or loss. 

The cow’s a born coward, and I — well, I confess 
my braveness is mostly in my bellow.” 

“ I know who could say the word, though,” said 
Lavender, with sparkling eyes, “ and that’s my page ! 


The Wizards of Ryetown 143 

He is perfectly brave. Oh, if he were only here, and 
knew the word ! ” 

“ Well, never mind,” said the bull comfortingly, 
“ no doubt it will all come right in the end, and it is 
really beautiful to think how sold that cow will feel 
when she finds she has tossed a real princess and 
given cups of her best tea to a mere judge’s daugh- 
ter ! And you're on our side now, and she can’t get 
you to call on her howsomdever. Oh, to see her face 
when I tell her ! I shall laugh for days and days.” 

The bull lay on his back again at the very idea and 
kicked up his heels and roared in a most boisterous 
fashion. He was really too noisy! Lavender was 
beginning to feel tired and hungry, for she had been 
out a long time, and she told him she must be going 
now, and would he be so good as to show her the way 
back to Ryetown. 

He jumped up at once, for he had a very kind 
heart for all his rough manners, and offered to escort 
her as far as the highroad. 


CHAPTER X 


(Boofcs UwoSboes 


HE bull was as good as his word. He took 



X Lavender out by his front door, and towards 
the highroad by a different lane from the one she 
had come by, and had had such an unpleasant meet- 
ing with the cow. 

They were walking along together, and chatting 
quite happily, when they saw, a neat figure in front 
of them also going in the direction of Ryetown. She 
wore a starched collar with a prim muslin bow tied 
very correctly under her chin, and snowy sunbonnet, 
and a trim gray frock, cut rather short in the skirt. 
This showed her feet, which were very small and 
pointed, and clad in the neatest patent leather shoes ; 
she carried a basket on her arm covered with a snowy 
cloth. Lavender thought she had never seen such 
a pattern girl. 

But the bull began to fidget and wriggle his tail 
and sniff and snort in a very peculiar way. Sud- 
denly he stopped, and made a loud blow through his 
nose, like an angry sigh. 


144 


The Wizards of Ryetown 145 

“ Excuse me one moment/’ he said eagerly, “ but 
there’s something about that back — ah, I thought as 
much ! It is the creature ! ” and with a wild bellow 
he started down the lane. 

Lavender saw only a whirl of tail, a flash of hoofs, 
then something gray and white and spotless ascended 
like an ethereal rocket. 

Lavender ran after the bull as hard as she could 



Goody Two-Shoes. 


pelt. What had happened? Ah, what indeed! 
There on the top of that prickly hedge — there was 
holly in it as well as blackberry brambles and haw- 
thorn — lay that pattern girl, her spotless apron 
torn, her smooth cheeks scratched, her hair all about 
her face. For her bonnet was in the ditch, except 
when the bull got tired of stamping on it and gave 


146 The Wizards of Ryetown 

it a toss for a change. Every now and then he 
looked up at the pattern girl on the hedge and bel- 
lowed at her. 

But when he saw Lavender’s horrified face he 
stopped his game with the bonnet, and looked rather 
silly. 

“ I really couldn’t help it,” he said apologetically, 
“ she came in the other day to ask me to join the 
‘ If you please and No thank you Society,’ and when 
I said I’d rather be excused she sat in my parlour 
and preached at me for hours — hours — till I was 
as mad as a bull ever was in this world. And I 
hadn’t a chance of reasoning with her, for she had 
brought Farmer Cheeser with a pitchfork to take 
care of her. Pretty manners, that ! ” 

“ You can’t say much about manners,” said 
Lavender indignantly, “ look how you’ve spoilt 
her pretty bonnet, and you may have hurt her 
seriously for all you know, and how is she to get 
down.” 

The bull fidgeted about and looked at the hedge, 
which was certainly very high. Under Lavender’s 
eye he felt a little ashamed of himself. 

“ It was only a bit of fun,” he said calfishly. “ I 
didn’t hurt her — I assure you I kept my horns out 
of the way carefully. I only gave her a little lift 


The Wizards of Ryetown 147 

with my head. It’s her neatness worries me so. 
I’ve no ill feeling really, I never bear malice.” 

He seemed to think this put everything to rights, 
and flicked his tail and looked at Lavender in the 
friendliest way. 

“ No malice,” said she; “I should think not in- 
deed! You ought to stand under the hedge and ask 
her to step down on your back; it’s the very least you 
can do. I trust you are not hurt,” she called to the 
neat girl on the hedge, and stood on tiptoe to try 
and see her. 

There was no answer for a moment, and then a 
prim little face peered over through the brambles, 
and a still primmer little voice replied : 

“ Although my body’s sadly bruised. 

My raiment sadly torn, 

Enwrapt in virtue, Goody lies 
A rose upon a thorn. 

“ Cross thoughts (which others might assail) 

Her heart can never move. 

She knows this accident is sent 
Her temper mild to prove,” 

Now this was a very proper little poem, and the 
sentiments in it were very proper too, but Lavender 
was not a pattern girl, and it made her feel very much 
inclined to leave Goody to find her way down as 


148 The Wizards of Ryetown 

best she could. As for the bull, he bellowed as if 
the verses were almost too much for him. 

“ It’s very wicked of me to feel like this/’ thought 
Lavender. “ I can’t imagine why I don’t like this 
good girl, for she must be very good to feel like 
that; I was ever so angry when the cow tossed me, 
and I’m not quite sure I’ve forgiven her yet. I can 
hardly believe in any one not being cross at all, espe- 
cially such a very neat and tidy girl — oh, well, I 
suppose it’s because I’m so hot-tempered myself I 
can’t understand any one else being patient.” 

So she tried her best to overcome those suspicious 
thoughts of hers and said in her most polite way, 
“ I’m sure the bull is very sorry to have disturbed 
you so. Won’t you let us help you down? ” 

There was silence for a few minutes. Goody al- 
ways said she waited so long before she answered 
questions because her copybook told her you should 
think before you speak, but the real truth was that 
she liked to answer in verse, and poetry takes some 
time to compose. On this occasion, however, no 
verse occurred to her, so she sat up as stiffly as the 
yielding hedge would let her, and said, “ I thank 
you kindly for your offer, and will accept it.” 

It took quite a long time, and a great deal of pa- 
tience to get her down, for the bull wriggled and 


The Wizards of Ryetown 149 

tossed and snorted whenever Goody’s little shoe 
touched his neck, though Lavender stood by his head 
and talked to him so that he should not notice. Then 
Goody made a great fuss lest her ankles should be 
seen, and altogether she made such a vast to-do about 
it, that Lavender was sure she would never get home 
in time for dinner at Mr. Peterkin’s. However, at 
last Goody arrived safely on her feet, in the lane, 
and she made a nice dancing-mistress curtsey to 
Lavender, and thanked her for her assistance in a 
speech which might have come out of a book, as in- 
deed it had, for it was quoted entire from “ Goody’s 
Moral Maxims; or, Speeches for the Young in every 
Possible Emergency.” 

Goody took no notice of the bull and pretended 
she did not see him, or hear his clumsy apologies, 
but instead, informed Lavender that she was no 
other than the celebrated Goody Two-Shoes, and was 
now on her way to Ryetown to visit her uncle and 
aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin. 

At this point the bull bade Lavender good-day. 

“ For you’ll have company now right into the 
town, and what’s more, company I can’t abide,” he 
said, and bowed to the pattern girl, who only turned 
up her nose at him and his uncouth politeness; the 
bull departed, and Lavender heard him bellowing and 


150 The Wizards of Ryetown 

snorting all up the lane as a relief, after having so 
gallantly suppressed his feelings, and helped Goody 
off the hedge. 

Lavender took Goody by the arm and hurried her 
off, at once. 

“ Though even if the bull turns round, Goody’s 
back can’t annoy him by its neatness now,” thought 
Lavender. 

And indeed, an untidier back could hardly be 
imagined. There was a great rent in the gray skirt 
and another in the black stocking, while as for the 
sunbonnet, — well, if you have ever seen a sunbon- 
net after a very wrathful young bull has had it to 
play with in a muddy lane, you will know exactly 
what it was like. Lavender, you see, had only been 
tossed into a nice geranium-bed, and was not quite 
so prim and neat to begin with, so her adventures 
had not upset her so much. 

Goody, however, walked on as primly as a school- 
teacher, and turned out her toes as carefully as be- 
fore. Fortunately, her precious basket was not in- 
jured, for the cloth had been pinned over it so care- 
fully not a thing had fallen out, and that was a good 
thing, for in that basket, as Goody told Lavender 
before they had gone far, were three bound volumes 
of Goody’s own verses, all written out in exercise 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 5 1 

books with a red line under each verse and the 
titles all in copperplate hand with curly-tailed cap- 
itals. 

“ They are a small tribute to the castle,” said 
she, “ I am going to present them to Miss Julia. I 
hear that the head cook is also a poet, so I expect we 
shall get on very well.” 

“Do you know the people at the castle ?” said 
Lavender, trying hard to be friendly and nice, be- 
cause Goody was a relation of the Peterkins. 

“ Not yet,” said Goody, “ but I have obtained a 
place as Head Cook’s Assistant.” She did not like 
to be thought a kitchen-maid, although she called 
herself so meek and humble, so she said Head Cook’s 
Assistant, which I need not tell you is just the same 
thing. 

“ I enter on my duties this afternoon, and my 
boxes have gone on by carrier.” 

“ I would think twice before going, if I were you,” 
said Lavender ; “ it’s a magic castle, and though the 
cook’s nice, Julia is a young witch, and it’s not at 

all safe, and besides ” She stopped short; 

on second thought she decided she had better not 
give even a hint of the coming insurrection. It was 
an odd thing that Lavender could not bring herself 
to wholly trust this very meek Goody, and the more 


152 The Wizards of Ryetown 

beautiful the sentiments that Goody talked the 
stronger this feeling grew. 

“ What an exceedingly foolish idea, ,, answered 
Goody to her last warning as to the dangers of the 
castle. “ I thought all educated people knew that 
witches had been extinct ever since the school board 
came into existence. They are quite creatures of the 
past ; besides, even if they existed, they could do no 
harm to the pious and humble. I hear also that a 
prince clad in golden armour is now visiting at the 
castle, and is it likely that one of such high standing 
would demean himself so far as to dwell in the abode 
of witches and warlocks? And even if your words 
gave a true account of the facts of the case, and Miss 
Julia were as dangerous a person as you represent, 
still, the more cruelly I was treated, the more sym- 
pathetically he — ahem ! ” she looked at Lavender 
with a very sly expression in the corners of her 
eves, — “ I mean the more chance my humble nature 
will have of showing itself.” 

Lavender wished Goody a thousand miles away, 
for she could not keep up the friendly feeling any 
longer. 

“ You’ll have plenty of opportunity of being as 
humble as ever you want, if I know anything about 
the place,” said she. “ Julia will see to that. But I 


The Wizards of Ryetown 153 

shouldn’t say too much poetry if I were you, for a 
very little puts Julia about, and when she’s in a tem- 
per ” She paused expressively, but Goody only 

tilted her neat nose a little higher, and said : 

“ Very much obliged to you, Miss, I am sure, but 
I may tell you my poetry has been admired by both 
clergy and laity, and if it isn’t good enough for the 
castle people, it’s a pity. At any rate, your advice 
will not deter me from saying as much as I think 
proper. But it really distresses me to think that such 
wickedly jealous and envious thoughts should find 
a place in the mind of any — er — young person.” 

“ Well,” thought Lavender to herself, “ this is a 
queer way to take well-meant advice ! ” But she 
said never a word, only shut her lips very tight and 
said the nine-times table right through before she 
undid them, and this you will find a very good plan 
when any one sneers at you. Most princesses do it, 
for they have to be more careful with their tempers 
than other people. 

After that the two girls walked on in silence, and 
presently they came in sight of Mr. Peterkin’s shop, 
and there he was himself on his own doorstep. 

Oh, the fuss and the flutter, the hastenings and ex- 
claimings, when they saw the state their pattern 
niece was in, so ruffled and torn, so dirty and untidy ! 


154 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Plump Mrs. Peterkin ran hither and thither herself, 
and sent Lavender hither and thither, and there was 
nothing but confusion in that quiet household until 
by means of needle and cotton, soap and water, brush 
and comb, sticking plaster and hair-pins, Goody 
came downstairs her spotless self again. Then, 
established in the parlour with a glass of cowslip 
wine at her right hand and the smelling salts at her 
left, she told the story of the bull, while her uncle 
and aunt listened with horror and indignation. 
Finally she burst into poetry. It was not true, but 
what of that! Poetry is seldom fact. 

“ Though other maidens, envious 
Of Goody’s virtues rare, 

May set a stormy Bull to Toss, 

Sweet Goody in the air. 

“ Yet Goody sweetly doth forgive, 

Although she gets no thanks ; 

She knows where naughty maidens go 
Who play malicious pranks.” 

Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin held up their hands and 
turned up their eyes in wonder and admiration at 
this gem, and when dinner-time came they placed 
Goody at her uncle's right hand and did their best 
to show that she was the honoured guest, and while 
she was served first with the best of everything Lav- 


The Wizards of Ryetown 155 

ender took her chance with the boys — not that that 
mattered much for no one was neglected at that 
house, only the two good people were so taken up with 
Goody they forgot they had another guest at all. 

But what did spoil their appetites (at any rate 
Lavender’s, I won’t answer for the boys’) was the 
way Goody talked ! It was enough to turn the sugar 
into salt. She reproved Snups for frowning, and 
certainly he did frown horribly when he looked at 
her, so much so that one feared the wrinkles would 
never come out ; she told Buttons and Perky how to 



She Told the Story of the Bull while Her Uncle 
and Aunt Listened. 

hold their spoons, and how many bites to take to a 
cherry; and as to Lavender, Goody could not leave 
her alone a minute; she reproved her for the proud 
way in which she held her head ; she warned her not 
to disdain the good food her kind uncle and aunt 


156 The Wizards of Ryetown 

had so generously provided; and when Lavender, 
who was almost too hot and vexed to eat, still kept 
her mouth tightly shut and answered never a word, 
Goody repeated a whole moral lecture out of one of 
her copy-books, in which she gave examples of girls 
she had known, who began with pouting lips and 
ended on the gallows. 

Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin shook their heads solemnly 
and said “ ah, yes ! ” and “ how true ! ” to everything 
she said, while the boys said not a word but only 
glared at Goody with quiet hate, and kicked Lav- 
ender sympathetically under the table; it was not a 
pleasant meal. 

When it was over, Goody retired to rest herself 
after the agitations of the morning, and her very 
good dinner, and to prepare for her walk to the 
castle. Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin, after their comfort- 
able fashion, took an easy-chair apiece and closed 
their eyes; and Lavender strolled to the shop door 
and looked out upon the street. 

It was a hot afternoon ; there were no customers 
just then, and the assistants were sitting in cool cor- 
ners drinking raspberry vinegar and lemon kali; it 
was so still Lavender could hear the fuchsia buds 
popping open on the leads, and the flowers shaking 
out their flounces ; certainly it was a very sleepy day. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 157 

Then the two little boys came out on their way 
to afternoon school. 

“ She’ll be gone by the time we come back,” said 
Buttons, “ and we shall be a little late to make 
sure. Isn’t she horrid! ” Buttons made this speech 
in a whisper, and very fast, so that by this time he 
was red in the face and quite out of breath, and 
little Perky took the opportunity to interrupt him. 

“ — and we can’t bear this howwid cousin Goody, 

and we ” Here Buttons dragged him off to 

school, for the bell had nearly stopped, and Lavender 
laughed and felt better. 

Then Snups came through the shop with his fiddle- 
case. He gave Lavender a surly nod as he passed 
her, but even this was strange from the gloomy 
Snups ; and when had gone a little way, he hesitated ; 
and then to Lavender’s surprise, retraced his steps 
and spoke, ungraciously enough, it is true. 

“ You can come up the street with me if you like, 
on my way to my music lesson,” said he. “ It ’ll 
be better than standing and doing nothing with a 
chance of that melted-butter Darling up there, com- 
ing down upon you at any moment.” 

He squinted viciously towards the room where 
Goody was reposing, and brought out his extraordi- 
nary epithet with a vivacity of which Lavender had 


158 The Wizards of Ryetown 

not guessed him capable. He evidently hoped Miss 
Goody had left her window open. 

But Lavender saw Snups meant kindly to her, so 
she accepted his offer, and as soon as the house was 
out of sight Snups gave a sigh of relief, and fell into 
a leisurely pace. Then he turned to Lavender ad- 
miringly. 

“ She found her match in you at any rate/’ he 
began. “ It’s grand to think of your setting that bull 
at her. You have a nerve ! And as much sense as 
nine boys out of ten. I never hoped to see that 
Polished Prig in such a jolly mess, honour bright I 
didn’t think it possible ! ” 

“ But I didn’t set the bull on her,” protested 
Lavender, quite in distress. “ I’d no idea what he was 
going to do.” 

Snups winked gloomily and put his tongue in his 
cheek. 

“ Of course you must keep that up,” he said. 
“ With pa and ma thinking all the world of her and 
her canting rhymes — -they’re too good to under- 
stand her, that’s what they are — one has to pay her 
out on the strictly sly ! ” Here he winked again. 
“ But I know all about it, and I like you for it, and 
if you’re ever in want of a friend you look out for 
me, and I’ll stand by you, that is if I’m still 


The Wizards of Ryetown 159 

here.” Snups stopped short and looked very mys- 
terious. 

“ Where are you likely to be going? ” asked Lav- 
ender, in astonishment. 

Snups looked about him in a furtive manner, and 
then came close to her side. 

“ I suppose you couldn’t keep a secret, now ? ” he 
said. 

“ Indeed I could,” said Lavender ; “ I’m very good 
at keeping secrets ! ” 

“ Well, then, it’s this,” said Snups, speaking very 
fast, “ I simply cannot stand it, and if Goody’s going 
to be at the castle she’ll be everlastingly in and out 
and out and in, prying and spying, and teaching and 
preaching, and correcting and objecting till life won’t 
be worth living, and the very next time she gets me 
into a row I shall Go ! ” 

“ But where ? ” said Lavender. 

“ Oh, I don’t know ! ” said Snups ; “ anywhere ! I 
have my fiddle, and I’m learning dance music. I 
could earn my living at fairs, I dare say. I’m not 
particular. But here we are at Mr. Flute’s, so good- 
bye. Remember, you’ve got a friend in me,” and 
with a confidential scowl he disappeared into Mr. 
Flute’s cottage, leaving Lavender as surprised as sur- 
prised could be, 


160 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ I never should have believed it if I hadn’t found 
it out for my own self,” she thought, as she turned 
back towards the Peterkins’. “ It seems as if all 
the disagreeable people were the nice ones, and the 
nice ones the nasty ones. There’s my page — he 
laughed at me at first till I couldn’t bear him, and 
then there was the bull and now there’s Snups. I 
shouldn’t wonder now if the cow herself came to 
apologise ! ” 


CHAPTER XI 


Cbe Cow Cries to pay a Call, anb 2La\>enber 
Cries to Cafee tbe Castle all by Iberselt 

M OO — moo — Good-afternoo — oon ! ” said a 
voice behind her ; there, sure enough, was the 
cow herself. Lavender was so astonished she could 
not think of a word to say, for the cow was bowing 
and smiling in the most absurd manner. Lavender 
thought she must surely be taking her for some one 
else. But as the cow came up to Lavender, she 
stopped and made a sweeping curtsey, saying : 

“ So glad to see you ; such a pleasure ! What a 
fortunate thing for me to meet you in this charm- 
ingly unexpected way. I was so much afraid I might 
have found you out this lovely day, and that would 
have been such a disappointment.” 

She was in regular calling trim, with a pink 
silk parasol not at all suited to her complexion, and 
a silver cardcase, while her red hair was frizzled low 
on her forehead. 

“ But you were never coming to call on me,” said 
Lavender, quite perplexed. 

161 


1 62 The Wizards of Ryetown 

The cow blushed and looked on the ground in an 
embarrassed sort of way. 

“1 hope you didn’t think me rude this morning,” 
she said, digging little holes with the point of her 
parasol. “ I’m afraid. I was a little hasty, but I am 
sure 'you would make allowance, — this hot weather, 
you know, so upsetting, and then the flies Be- 

sides, my dear, I am sure you will understand me, I 
didn’t know to whom I had the honour — you quite 
understand, I am sure, how very vexed I am that you 
should have been in the least put out — I had no 

notion I was — er — entertaining ” 

“ Entertaining! ” said Lavender. It was enough 
to make the best-brought-up girl repeat last words. 
To be tossed in the morning and have it alluded to 
as “ entertaining ” in the afternoon. 

“ I found it so, indeed, your grace,” said the cow. 
“ I am quite overwhelmed ! A real princess ! I 
hardly know how to express my feelings ! ” 

“ So that’s why she’s so soapified,” thought Lav- 
ender, and drew herself up coldly, hoping the cow 
would see she was not wanted. But no! Mrs. 
Cow was one of those people who think it shows 
high breeding for a princess to be cold and haughty 
to them and rather enjoy being patronised by any- 
body they think grand. If Lavender had liked her 


The Wizards of Ryetown 163 

and been gentle and sweet the cow would have 
thought much less of her. It is rather a topsy-turvy 
way of looking at things, but I assure you there are 
people like that, so what can you expect of a cow? 
So the stiffer Lavender was, the more the cow bowed 
and smiled. 

“ I can’t think how I came to make such a mis- 
take ! ! ” she twittered. “ It isn’t as if I were not 
accustomed to good society. I’m on most intimate 
terms with the castle people. Julia is exceedingly 
friendly — so kind of her, is it not ? ” 

“ Do you consider Julia good society? ” 

Lavender said this very stiffly, but the cow only 
thought to herself, “ Then she is grander than Julia,” 
and went on in her most oily manner : 

“ Oh, well ; you see in the country we have to put 
up with what we can get. I have her quite under 
my thumb — oh, quite! It’s as much as her life’s 
worth to offend me. She daren’t do it, for I 
know,” — the cow pretended to stop herself on second 
thoughts, — “ er — I know what I know ! And she’s 
an entertaining little thing in her way, so I have 
her up to tea now and then.” 

Then Lavender remembered what the bull had 
said about the cow knowing the Word, and thought 
that here was an opportunity of doing a clever stroke 


1 64 The Wizards of Ryetown 

of business for the rebellion. The cow was playing 
with the tassel of her parasol. 

“ What do you mean about having Julia in your 
power ? ” said she. 

The cow looked up at her through her stiff, white 
eyelashes. 

“ Of course, it’s a great secret,” said she; “only 
cows with crumpled horns know it, and I believe I’m 
the only one of the sort in the country. Julia is 
fully aware of my importance, and she has asked me 
to tea this afternoon, but of course I would rather 
take tea with a real princess.” 

This was very like asking for an invitation, was 
it not ? But Lavender took no notice. 

The cow was rather put out by that, but she came 
up to Lavender and nudged her elbow and whis- 
pered : 

“ If I came to tea, you know, we could talk about 
the Word. I really could not mention a matter of so 
much importance in the open street.” 

Now Lavender longed to know the Word, and it 
was a most important thing for the success of the 
revolution that she should know it, but though she 
had been growing very much wiser of late, she could 
not yet conceal her dislikes as well as a bishop, so 
she really could not put on a friendly face to this 


The Wizards of Ryetown 165 

false and treacherous animal, even if the cow’s 
wide smile and her pink parasol and the ribbons on 
her tail had not made Lavender feel as if she would 
hate cows all her life, so she said : 

“ I shall not be at home this afternoon.” 

But the cow was absolutely determined to buy the 
acquaintance of this real princess, even at the price 
of her secret, and she absolutely refused to be shaken 
off, though Lavender was by this time walking away. 

“ It really is most important information I have 
on my tongue’s tip,” she pursued; “ you can prove 
it at any time. You just walk into the great hall of 
the castle, stand in front of the marble statue at the 
bottom of the stairs, say The Word three times, 
and Julia will turn into a caterpillar or a beetle or 
whatever creeping thing you choose to think of.” 

“ You don’t mean it? ” said Lavender, so excited 
she could hardly speak, but doing her very best to 
hide it. “ How can one word possibly do any more 
than another ? ” 

“ Try it, that’s all ! ” said the cow. “ Try, 

“ Deesum, Daysum, 

Merrywaysum, 

Markum, 

Parkum, 

Rare ! " 

And then you will see what will happen ! ” 


1 66 The Wizards of Ryetown 
“ Oh ! ” said Lavender, and flew off like a mad 


thing. 

“ Stop ! Stop ! Stop ! ” cried the cow as Lavender 



Stop !” cried Goody Two-Shoes, as Lavender passed 
her on the bridge with feet that fairly twinkled, so 
fast she went, 



The Wizards of Ryetown 167 

But she did not stop for any of their crying, but 
ran on, over the bridge and over the hill, and through 
the wood, and never paused till she was ringing at 
the front door of the castle itself. The sentry was 
fast asleep behind his newspaper or of course he 
would have stopped her at the gate, and Lavender 
ran past him gaily, thinking how easily she had got 
in, and how in a minute or two she would be in the 
great hall saying Deesum, Daysum and the rest of it, 
and the Judge and Julia would be squirming little 
insects at her feet. And all this without help from 
any one, not even her page. 

But pride was to have a fall. 

She had not noticed the black cat, who had been 
sleeping with one eye open at the sentry’s feet, and 
who had run past her under cover of the shrubs 
and bushes, and was even then telling Julia all 
about it. 

So when Lavender rang the great front-door bell 
the door was opened by two armed sentries, so that 
though she could see into the great hall, and even 
catch sight of the statue at the bottom of the stairs 
by peering underneath the sentries’ elbows, she was 
as far from getting a chance to say Deesum, Daysum 
as if she had been in Mrs. Peterkin’s back parlour 
looking at a picture book. Which plainly shows that 


1 68 The Wizards of Ryetown 

you should never holla ! till you are not only out of 
the woods, but right into the castle. 

Moreover, once through the gate, she had expected 
to get in so easily that she had not thought of any- 
thing to say to these wooden-faced sentries with 
their drawn swords, and stood looking at them quite 
foolishly. 

Now if she could see into the hall you will guess 
she could hear as well, and she was quite glad of a 
sound of whistling that came to her ears — though it 
was only a vulgar tune and whistled rather flat; for 
it gave the sentries something else to do besides stare 
at her. 

But who was this coming whistling down the 
grand staircase? Surely it must be the Prince! 
Her dear Prince Robin she had come so far to seek ! 
It was very tiresome that she could only catch sight 
of a bit at a time between the sentries’ elbows. But 
who else could it be? 

His slippers were silk with diamond buckles, he 
had rings on his fingers, pink silk stockings, and a 
silk jacket with gold buttons; who but a prince 
could be dressed like that? And was she not sure 
her own prince was in the castle. Now her troubles 
would all be at an end. 

He came towards the door, and the sentries stood 


The Wizards of Ryetown 169 

aside to let him pass, and at last Lavender saw his 
face. 

“ Ah ! ” she screamed, u what is the matter with 
you? Who are you? You are not my prince at 
all ! ” 

The Prince started back as if a gun had been fired 
at him, and his face went pale, and he shook in his 
silk shoes so that the diamonds on the buckles 



The False Prince. 


twinkled. If Lavender had been an ogre he couldn't 
have looked more frightened. Can you guess why? 
I expect you can, though Lavender never thought of 
it, she was so dreadfully put out. 

After a minute this silk prince recovered himself, 
and tried hard to look haughty and prince-like. 


170 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ What do you mean, beggar? ” he said. 

This was a new surprise, for instead of speaking 
clearly like Prince Robin or Lavender herself, he 
had a most horribly bad accent and thick voice. If I 
wrote the words as he spoke them, this is what they 
would look like. 

“ Wad jer meed, beggur? ” 

Just read it aloud and you will hear in a minute 
how nasty it sounds. He hadn’t a cold, either. 

“Oh, and to think how I’ve waited,” cried Laven- 
der, “ and the things I have gone through to get a 
chance to speak to my prince, and now you’re some- 
body else after all.” 

Then she recovered herself, and thought perhaps 
that was not the right way to speak to a stranger 
who knew nothing of the story, so she began again. 

“ Excuse me,” she said, “ but I am looking for a 
prince who is a friend of mine, and I thought he was 
staying here, but now I see you, I find I was mis- 
taken. Perhaps you can tell me where I shall find 
him.” 

“ A likely tale ! ” said the silk prince, with a sneer, 
for he did not understand politeness. “ You friends 
with a prince, indeed ! Look at your old frock and 
boy’s shoes ! He ! He ! He ! ” 

“ I thought you might have seen him, but as you 


The Wizards of Ryetown 171 

have not I’ll say good-afternoon,” said Lavender, 
trying hard to keep her temper. But the silk prince 
had now recovered from his fright and wanted to 
“ get a rise ” out of her, as he would have expressed 
it, meaning he would like to make her angry and 
then laugh at her, a nice manly amusement some boys 
are fond of. So he called to her as she was turning 
away: 

“ What was he like, this prince of yours ? ” 

Lavender thought that perhaps he was more good- 
natured than he looked, so she turned back. 

“ Oh, he had sparkling dark eyes and curling black 
hair, and rosy cheeks, and you would know him 
directly, for he is always laughing. And his name is 
Prince Robin.” 

Now the silk prince was frightened indeed ! He 
went not only white but green and yellow, and tried 
to tell the sentries to cut her in pieces with their 
swords, but the words would not come and he only 
stuttered and stammered. 

But a cold, cold voice behind him said: 

“ What is the meaning of all this? ” and there was 
the young witch herself, standing behind him in the 
great hall, beautiful in her goblin gown, with her 
yellow-brown eyes shining out of her frizzy black 
hair. 


1 72 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Lavender was so dazed and confused by these 
events that she had forgotten about the Word alto- 
gether, and could only try to understand with all her 
might who this silk-clad prince could be and where 
her own Prince Robin was, since it seemed she had 
been making a great mistake all along and he had 
never been at the castle at all. 

So it happened that she hardly noticed Julia, and 
only said again to the stuttering prince : 

“ Have you seen him ? ” 

“Seen whom?” said Julia. She was now still 
more angry with Lavender than before, seeing her 
apparently so calm and cool, for witches always like 
people to shrivel up or turn into something when 
they glare at them. They expect little attentions of 
that sort, and when Lavender hardly saw her, and 
only looked at the silk prince and said again : 

“ Tell me, have you seen him? ” she was in a fury, 
and the little black goblins flew hither and thither 
like mad things. 

“ What are you doing here again, you kitchen- 
beetle? ” she said, “ and how can you be so bold as 
to speak to the Prince at the very castle door itself? ” 
Then said the Prince : 

“ You can well ask that ! This beggardly miss has 
been worrying the life out of me. I can’t think ’ow 


The Wizards of Ryetown 173 

your father lets such critters into the grounds. A 
pretty thing if a prince is to be pestered by beggars 
when he’s out a-visiting in a friendly way. I’ll be 
jiggered if I stay any longer.” 

“ Tell me where Prince Robin is,” said Lavender; 
“ please tell me, and I’ll go away this minute.” 

“ That you will certainly do ! ” said Julia, and that 
would have been the end of it, but suddenly one of 
the wooden-faced sentries came alive to what was 
going on, and thinking to save his mistress from this 
very persevering little girl, said in a stiff, wooden 
sort of voice: 

“Does she mean him in the toad-hole?” This 
was the name of one of the castle dungeons, because 
it was so damp and there were so many toads in it. 
Julia smiled. There was a prisoner in the toad- 
hole, certainly, a poor little page with stiff, red hair, 
whom she had had beaten and shut up there with 
nothing to eat. But it suited her to let Lavender 
think it was Prince Robin • so she only smiled. 

“Now I know you have him prisoner, you cruel 
woman ! How dare you, oh, how dare you shut him 
in a toad-hole ! ” cried Lavender. “ But I’ll find him 
and let him out, I will, if I have to knock your ugly 
old castle down to do it ! ” 

She shook back her hair from her forehead, she 


174 The Wizards of Ryetown 

spoke as loud as she could, she stamped and got 
red in the face. Her anger had quite got the better 
of her, and from that moment she was not like a 
princess any more, but just like any other hot-tem- 
pered little girl. So she lost the day as well as her 



He Picked Her up and Carried Her out through 
the Gate. 


temper, for up came the old seneschal, and instead of 
finding her dignified and reasonable, as he had be- 
fore, he only saw a redfaced child in a passion, and 
at a sign from Julia picked her up and carried her 



The Wizards of Ryetown 175 

out through the gate she had come in by so con- 
fidently a few minutes before, while she kicked and 
struggled like a naughty child who has had the worst 
of it and not in the least like a royal princess. 

“ Well,” said the seneschal, and you may be sure 
he put her down the moment they were outside the 
gate, “ of all the naughty lasses ! I am black and 
blue ! ” Saying which he locked the gate, went back 
to the castle to plaster his bruises, and left Lavender 
in the dusty hedgerow. 

“ Oh, how silly I’ve been,” she thought, as soon 
as she had had five minutes to cool down. “ Oh, 
why did I kick that reasonable old seneschal ? He 
might have told me everything if I’d only kept 
friends with him, and even let me see my prince, 
and now he’ll always shoo me away ! ” 

Lavender cried a little more, but she remembered 
the fairy Stick-to-it’s lesson in time and dried her 
eyes, and went slowly on her way back to Mr. Peter- 
kin’s. She had been in such a hurry on her last 
journey to the castle that she had not looked at any- 
thing on her way through the wood and had thought 
of nothing but the W ord ; but now she noticed that 
the wood was Dead Silent. No chirruping of birds, 
no rustling of mice, no scurrying of rabbits, no croak- 
of frogs in moist places. Not a sound. 


176 The Wizards of Ryetown 


But what was this? What, but a huge green 
caterpillar crawling across the path! And there! 
She nearly ran her face against another hanging 
from a branch! And there was another, and an- 
other, and another. The wood was thick with them. 

Was this the end of the Plot of the Woodland 
People? She fancied one looked at her with the ex- 
pression of the gray fox. And surely that little one 
had once been a mouse. Lavender was glad to be 
in the town again, and when she came into it, she 
found something to make her forget the poor Wood- 
land People, and the false cow, and the silk prince 
with the ugly voice, and her failure to get into the 
castle hall, and Julia, and all her other troubles. 
Except Prince Robin in the toad-hole. That she 
could not quite forget, or at least only by fits and 
starts. 











CHAPTER XII 


Ebe 1Runn(ng*awa? 



S soon as Lavender came to the bridge she 


1 . X. could see that Ryetown was wide awake. 
You might have thought it was going to sleep, for 
half the shops were closed, but I think it was only 
winking, for the other half were wide open; the 
boys and girls just out of school were racing here 
and there, climbing up the lamp-posts and hoard- 
ings and clustering at the corners ; older people were 
putting their heads out of windows and doors, and 
looking up and down the street. What could it all 
be about? 

It was not hard to find the reason if you looked, 
for on every bare paling and wall were pasted great 
pictures, pink and blue and green and yellow, pic- 
tures of wild beasts, performing horses, elegant 


178 The Wizards of Ryetown 

ladies in short skirts, clowns, tight-rope dancers, and 
many other wonders; and right across every pic- 
ture was printed in great big letters 

THE CIRCUS IS COMING! 

LOOK OUT FOR BARLEYBOROUGH FAIR ! 

“ It will very soon be here,” Lavender heard a 
girl telling her little brother, “ it will come through 
the town and go to Barleyborough, and then to- 
morrow daddy will take us to see the lions and the 
ladies and all ! ” 

There were Buttons and Perky among a number 
of other little lads of their own age. They ran 
up shyly to Lavender, for they were nice little 
boys. 

“ We are going to the circus to-morrow,” they 
said. “ Papa and Mamma take us every year, isn’t 
it kind of them ! We will ask them to take you too. 
We are sure they will ! ” 

“ That’s very nice of you,” said Lavender. “ I 
shall enjoy it! ” 

Buttons and Perky stood on one leg apiece and 
giggled shyly because they did not know what to 
say, and then they ran back to their companions. 

“ How delightful to see a circus ! ” thought Lav- 


179 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

ender. “ I do wonder what it will be like ! ” 
There were no circuses in Lavender Garden, of 
course, so she did not even know as much about it 
as that mite Perky. 

“ Here it is ! Here it is ! There they come ! 
Here they are ! ” shouted a boy on a lamp-post, who 
could see round the corner. Then the children 
scampered, and the frightened ones cried, the people 
crowded and crushed, those who had been on the 



“ Here They Are ! ” Shouted a Boy on a 
Lamp-Post. 

carriage way had to squeeze on to the path to make 
room for the wonders, and Lavender was pushed 


180 The Wizards of Ryetown 

back almost against the wall, and would have seen 
hardly anything if just at that moment Snups had 
not come along on his way home from his music 



Then Came the 
Procession. 


lesson, fiddle- 
case in hand. He 
took Lavender by the 
arm, swung his fiddle-case 
round once or twice, and there 
they were in the very front row ! 

Tootle, tootle, tootle, went the 
flutes. Bangety Bang, went the 


drums. Then came the procession. 
First came the Band ; then 
A black man on a camel ; then 


The Wizards of Ryetown 1 8 1 

Six beautiful ladies in spangles, riding six beau- 
tiful white horses. Their hair was yellow, 
their cheeks were pink, their eyelashes black 
as coal; they were more like beautiful dolls 
than ordinary people. And when their horses 
pranced about, the ladies never held on by their 
manes but only smiled and smiled. They were 
most charming creatures. Then came 
The clowns, and they were the funniest of the 
Funny; one rode with his face to his horse’s 
tail, and said to the one behind him, “ How are 
you to-morrow ? ” and the other said, “ Ain’t 
it hot? I’m nearly frozen!” You can guess 
how the people laughed. Then came 
The Elephants ; then 
The Wax-works ; then 
The Fat Man; then 

The Acrobats and Dancers; then, best of all, 
The Cart Full of Mountebanks, acting a 
little play as they jolted along. 

Lavender and Snups looked at these things with 
all their eyes. 

“ Hurrah ! Hurrah ! ” shouted Snups, waving 
his fiddle-case. 

“ Hurrah ! Hurrah ! ” cried Lavender, clapping 
her hands. And all the crowd shouted hurrah ! 


1 82 The Wizards of Ryetown 

But a loud shrill voice rose up near where they 
were standing. 

“ Fie, fie; oh, fie, on such folly! ” it cried. They 
stopped shouting, and went hot and cold by turns. 
There stood Miss Goody, the picture of propriety. 

“ Oh, fie ! ” she cried again, bustling through the 
crowd, who gave way respecfully, for the Ryetown 
people were simple, and did not know Goody as well 
as Lavender and Snups did. They believed in any- 
thing that looked pious. 

“ Alas ! ” exclaimed Goody, very loud for every- 
one to hear, “ do I see my cherished cousin Snups 
among the heedless crowd ? And who is this stand- 
ing by his side and urging him to Folly? Oh, tell 
me, good people, that mine eyes deceive me — but 
no, I see too true, alas ! it is Lavender ! ” 

“ Oh, do shut up ! ” said Snups. He and Laven- 
der were so wedged in by the crowd that they had 
no chance of escaping, and had to stand there like 
two culprits. And extremely cross they felt. 

The mountebanks, too, noticed the crowd, and 
stopped, for they thought there might have been an 
accident, and they were very kindly people, and 
hoped they might help. So it happened that Miss 
Goody found all eyes upon her, which was just what 
she wanted. There were Lavender and Snups, the 


The Wizards of Ryetown 183 

crowd, the wicked procession, and the mountebanks. 
She turned up her eyes, took half a quarter of a 
minute to think about it, and burst into poetry. 

“ Oh, what is prancing up the street ? 

Why do the people stare ? 

And do my shocked eyes really see 
Snups and another there ? 

“ Oh, wicked, wicked mountebanks. 

How can you so attract ? 

Do you not know ’tis very wrong 
To dance about and act ? 

“ And can wise people stand and stare 
At such a foolish crew ? 

Have you no pleasant books to read. 

No useful work to do ? 

“ Oh, grown-up folks should blush to see 
Such monkey-tricks gone through ; 

Go home, go home, oh, foolish ones, 

I am ashamed of you ! ” 

Considering how short a time she had had for 
composing it, no wonder she felt a little proud, or 
shall we say a little less humble than usual, when the 
people began to say one to another that, perhaps, it 
was a bit childish to stand and watch the clowns, 
and to ask the children if they hadn’t anything 
better to do than dawdle at street corners. The 
poor mountebanks, too, were dreadfully miserable, 
though they had not done anything to be ashamed 


184 The Wizards of Ryetowil 

of ; they only wanted to earn their suppers by mak- 
ing people laugh, and a very good way too, 7 think. 

But, as I said, Goody was pleased and flattered, 
and could not manage to put on such a humble face 
as usual. Snups and Lavender felt most rebellious 
as they walked homewards behind Goody. They 
were sad too, for the poor mountebanks’ sake, for 
they could see they looked hungry through all their 
paint, when they saw the crowd turning away, just 
as the people had had their laugh and were just 
feeling in their pockets for their pennies; for this 
was the moment when Goody had attracted the 
crowd’s attention with her “ Oh, fie ! ” Then Snups 
and Lavender hated to be picked out for a lecture — 
in poetry too — before all their acquaintances, and 
Snups was not an amiable boy at the best of 
times. He longed to have a good smite at the 
smooth backhair before him. 

“ Well, we shall see them at the circus, anyhow ! ” 
he said savagely. 

“ But will they take you, after this? ” 

“ If she stops us ! ” he said, looking quite mur- 
derous ; “ if she says a word to pa and ma, I — I ” 

Luckily just then they arrived at the shop, or I don’t 
think even Lavender could have saved Goody from 
the fiddle-case. Now, no one would have thought 


The Wizards of Ryetown 185 

that Goody had any idea they were behind her, but 
she had, and was listening with her little sharp ears 
to everything they said. 

“ Miss Lavender deserves a lesson,” said Goody 
to herself, with her Goodest expression ; “ a very 
severe lesson would be the best thing in the world 
for her morals.” 

Following this kind intention, she marched into 
the parlour where Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin were wait- 
ing tea, and held up her hands and turned up her 
eyes as if they would never come down, and told 
such a tale of Lavender’s misdoings as shocked the 
good people most dreadfully. 

The bull story (or I might say the cock and bull 
story) was the beginning of the tale, how Lavender 
had insulted the Great Folk at the castle was the 
middle, and how she was leading Snups into wicked 
ways came at the end, and she finished by saying 
that she had heard Lavender persuading Snups to 
give his missionary penny to the mountebanks. 

Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin were quite appalled to 
think they had taken such a wicked girl as Lavender 
into their household. 

When she could not think of anything more, 
Goody burst into tears, and told her sympathising 
aunt and uncle that she really could not visit them, 


1 86 The Wizards of Ryetown 

or even stay to tea, while such a bad example was in 
the house. 

“ How can I improve my cousins and those 
around me, with such a wicked girl about, ruffling 
and rumpling me ? Think what she has done to me 
in this one day — she has made me both unpunctual 
and untidy! Alas! if this goes on, I plainly see I 
shall no longer be a pattern girl ! ” 

Soft-hearted Mr. Peterkin blew his nose and 
shook his head, while his wife openly wiped her eyes. 
It grieved them very much to think they must break 
their word to the page, and send Lavender away, 
but what were they to do ? They could not run the 
risk of spoiling a Pattern Girl, but it was a difficult 
task to invite a visitor to go away, just when tea 
was ready too, and still remain kind and hospitable ; 
for Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin had never been anything 
else in their lives. 

I really do not know how they would have man- 
aged, if Lavender, who had heard Goody’s speech, 
had not risen up herself and bade them good-bye. 

“ You have both been very kind to me,” said 
Lavender, “ and I shall never forget it, but I think 
I had better leave you, for it is no use arguing, and 
Goody is your own niece ! ” 

Then she kissed Mrs. Peterkin, and when the 


The Wizards of Ryetown 187 

kind soul felt the soft lips on her cheek she was so 
certain that they did not belong to a wicked girl that 
she fell into a perplexity, and when she came out of 
it Lavender was gone. 

It was getting quite late when Lavender left the 
Peterkins. There were not many people about, and 
no children, yet it was not like a country road where 
one could sit in the hedge-row and have a com- 
fortable cry and get it over, for there were passers- 
by, who would have stared. 

But oh, how lonely Lavender felt ! Bed-time was 
near, and there was no one to give our poor little 
princess bed or supper. 

“ I don’t know where to go ! ” she sobbed when 
no one was near, “ and I don’t know where my page 
is, and he doesn’t know where I am, and my prince 
is in a toad-hole ! Oh, why did I ever leave Laven- 
der Garden? I do believe I’m the most miserable 
person in the whole world.” 

The great tears rolled down her cheeks as she 
wandered from one street to another. She tried to 
be brave and remember she was a princess, but the 
tears came faster and faster, and at last she sat down 
on a doorstep and really cried. The cheerful sun 
had long gone to bed, the streets were quite dark, 
except where the street-lamps shone, and they were 


1 88 The Wizards of Ryetown 

very far apart ! How gladly would Lavender have 
changed places with the lowliest child in the whole 
town, if she might have had a piece of bread and a 
little hole to sleep in! 

But princesses have to stay princesses, however 
tired and hungry they may be ! 

“ So here you are ! ” 

How Lavender started! And how she laughed 
and cried both at once when she saw — who do you 
think? — why Snups, with a fiddle-case in his hand 
and a big red bundle over his shoulder ! 

“ Yes, Lve run away,” he said, nodding; “ told 
you I should! And when it came to turning you 
out of the house for the sake of that Pampered, 
Poking, Prying Prig , why, it’s time I went too. 
So here I am, and here are you, and off we go to 
seek our fortunes ! ” 

How different everything seemed at the sound of 
these kind words. Lavender’s tears fled away like 
lightning, for she was not a crying girl really. 

“ Where are we going? ” she said, as she wiped 
the last away. 

“ To Barleyborough, of course,” said Snups, who 
was in high spirits, “ we shall see the fair and the 
circus too, and have as much fun as anybody.” 

“ Oh, how delightful ! ” said Lavender, and they 


The Wizards of Ryetown 189 

set off down the street together ; it was so jolly and 
so adventurous. Not horrid-adventurous like the 
cat, or lonely-adventurous like her last trip to the 
castle, but jolly-adventurous; so she quite forgot 
she was tired, and even forgot her troubles — prince 
and page and all. 

“ Is it far to Barleyborough ? ” she asked, when 
they had left the town behind them. 

“ Miles and miles and miles,” said Snups, “ and 
we shan’t arrive to-night, and goodness knows what 
may happen to us before we get there! ” 

He loved to be mysterious, did Snups. 

Lavender gave a little sigh. After all she was 
tired, and she thought Snups might have forgotten 
she had had 110 tea. 

“ Where shall we get our supper? ” she asked. 

“ Wait till you see what I’ve got in my bundle! ” 
said Snups. What a good fellow he was after 
all! 

Now they were out on the turnpike road ; not the 
one that led through the wood to the castle, of 
course, but one that went in quite another direction. 
This was a nice cheerful road, with broad fields 
stretching away on each side, with hedges of wild 
rose and honeysuckle and travellers’ joy, elder-flow- 
ers and bramble-blossoms, while meadow-sweet was 


1 9 © The Wizards of Ryetown 

white by the clitch-sides, and poppies made the corn- 
fields scarlet. 

Now it was so cool and still. The air was full of 
delightful scents ; the moon had risen and the white 
road was almost as light as day, only it was a quiet 
greeny sort of light, and everything looked beau- 
tiful and mysterious, as if the fields and hedges had 
a great many things to say to any one who could 
listen quietly and understand their language. 

But who was this coming so quickly down the 
road? A little figure running as fast as ever it 
could. When it came nearer they saw it was a 
little boy, very thin and wiry, with a quick, eager 
face. He was dressed in light scanty clothes, with 
running shoes and short socks, so that one could see 
the hard muscles of his little legs. 

On he came at a great pace, and when he saw 
Lavender’s face he stopped short, looked at her hard, 
and said : 

“ Good gracious me! But you’re the Princess, 
as I can see with half an eye. The message is 
‘ Barleyborough and a Green Rose.’ ” 

There was no time to ask him any questions, for 
he was off and away down the road, and out of sight 
in no time. 

Here was a piece of luck! For, of course, the 


The Wizards of Ryetown 191 

message was from the page, who must have got the 
rebellion all in readiness, and was waiting for her to 
join him and march with him to besiege the wicked 
Judge in his wicked castle. And how much better 
that was than sitting at home in a garden and hav- 
ing a kingdom won and brought to you like a birth- 
day cake! At any rate Lavender thought so. 

“ Prince Robin will know that girls can endure 
hardships, when we conquer the castle and rescue 
him out of the dungeon ! ” she thought. 

The road was now very lonely, and it was getting 
late at night, so all the imps and fairies were about, 
for they love the moonlight nights. Perhaps you 
or I would not have been able to see them, but they 
were there all the same, and Lavender and Snups 
saw plenty, for she was a Real Princess, and he was 
a True Musician. 

There were hosts of little gray shadow-imps, 
playing under the shade of the trees as thick as gnats 
on a summer evening by the brook, and dryads sat 
in the branches and smiled at the children and sang 
low songs that made Snups long to try over the 
tunes, and there were the pixies too, that fly by the 
side of lonely wayfarers and tell them tales to be- 
guile the road. But the two travellers never 
slackened their speed, till in a lovely place where the 


192 The Wizards of Ryetown 


road widened out under a great hawthorn bush 
covered with honeysuckle a little voice sang : 


" Snups ! ” 


Like this 



“ Do-Ra, is that you? ” said Snups, “ and Mi-Fa 
and Sol-La? ” 

“ Here we are, here we are, here we are,” sang 
the three little voices most harmoniously, and Lav- 
ender could see three sweet blue music goblins, who 
ran up and stroked Snups’ hands as if he had been 
their own born brother. 

“ Come in, come in, begin, begin ! ” they sang, 
and Snups, who evidently expected this welcome 
and had been keeping it for a surprise, led Lavender 
into a cosey hollow in the sand, where the goblins had 
scooped out two comfortable holes, just like arm- 
chairs, and had woven cushions of dry leaves, and 
carpeted it all with scented grasses. It was like a 
dear little room, and the ceiling was of the growing 
branches of the hawthorn. As for a lamp, the gob- 
lins had collected quite fifty glow-worms in a mossy 
hollow of the hawthorn tree, and they lighted the 
place with a moony glow. When their guests were 
seated, the blue goblins flew into the hawthorn bush 
and sang to them. And their song was like the 
wind blowing over hay-meadows, 


The Wizards of Ryetown 193 

Now the time had come for Snups to unpack his 
bundle. 

First he brought out a gay tin of biscuits, then a 
cream cheese, white and flaky, then a tin of sardines, 
and then a sponge cake. The reason he had all these 



Oh, What a Nice Supper They Had*! 

good things, was that he had had a birthday the 
week before, and Mr. Peterkin always gave his sons 


194 The Wizards of Ryetown 

presents out of the shop. Oh, what a nice supper 
they had ! 

Of course there were no plates or forks, for you 
can’t expect goblins to keep a store of crockery ; but 
Snups fished out the sardines with a forked stick, 
and if one did slip off its biscuit one could catch it by 
its little tail and put it on again. A brook babbled 
along in the moonlight behind them, they could hear 
it over the stones, and it was both deep and clear, 
so they made cups with their hands and drank till 
they were quite refreshed. Then they lay down in 
the soft dry sand and were fast asleep before the 
goblins had half finished their good-night song 
among the branches. 


CHAPTER XIII 

Barlesborougb ffait 


W HEN the young travellers awoke it was 
broad daylight, and the sunbeams were 
looking for them through the honeysuckle. 

“ We must be off directly/’ said Snups, “ and be 
well on our way before the sun gets hot. It’s no use 
waiting to say good-bye to the goblins, for they are 
hidden away and fast asleep by this time.” 

So after a refreshing wash in the cold brook- 
water, they started off along the white road while 
the shadow of the hedge still stretched half across, 
and the air was fresh and the sky deep blue. 

After a while they mounted a hill, and there be- 
low them were the red roofs of Barleyborough, 
where the bells were ringing to show it was a holi- 
day, and white tents were rising in a big meadow 
outside the town, all ready for the fair. But it was 
still a good way off. 

“ We will have breakfast at the next milestone,” 
said Snups ; he was a very thoughtful companion to 
travel with ! And soon Lavender cried out : 

*95 


196 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ There it is ! But what a great big stone ! And 
oh ! it’s moving ! I do believe it’s a man ! ” 

She was quite right, and when they got a little 
nearer she exclaimed most joyfully : 

“ Why, it’s the head cook from the castle, but 
what can have brought him here ! ” 

Yes, it was no other but the head cook himself in 
his white cap and coat, with a roll of paper in his 
hand and other rolls sticking out of every one of his 
pockets. There he sat on the milestone that said 
“ one mile to Barleyborough ” and wrote and wrote, 
and tore his hair and slapped his knees, quite as if he 
had been in his own kitchen. 

“ My goodness ! ” cried Lavender, “ whatever are 
you doing here ! ” 

He was so much surprised to see Lavender that 
he jumped up from the stone, took her by the hands, 
and danced her round and round till they were both 
giddy, he was such an excitable little man! 

“ What brings you here?” asked Lavender 
again when she had got her breath, but the cook 
did not answer. Being a poet, he paid very little 
attention to ordinary questions. Poets are like 
that ; if you say “ what a beautiful colour the sky 
is ! ” or “ what rhymes with daffydowndilly ? ” or 
“ what’s the plural of daddylonglegs ? ” they give 


The Wizards of Ryetown 197 

you all their attention, but if you ask them to pass 
the bread and butter, they very likely never hear 
you, and you have to get it for yourself. But when 
Lavender asked him a third time what brought him 
there, he did hear her, and then he rolled his eyes 
round and round like Catherine wheels, threw up his 
hands, and sat him down on the milestone with a 
thump. 

“ Oh, my dear,” he exclaimed, “ such goings on ! 
Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it.” 

“ How about breakfast? ” said Snups. 

“ Ah, yes ! The young gentleman is right ! ” said 
he; “I will make you a breakfast! A dejeuner 
divine and omelette superbe ! ” He had once been 
scullion under a French cook, and the thought of 
omelettes always made him talk like this. “ If our 
young friend here ” — he bowed to Snups in quite a 
Parisian fashion — “ will go to the farmhouse yonder 
for some cream and butter and eggs ” — here he pro- 
duced a neat white canvas bag of money and gave 
a silver coin to Snups — “ I will toss you an omelette, 
a souflee, a dream ! ” 

Lavender wondered how he was going to do it 
by the roadside until she saw, all tied together on 
a string, a ladle, a saucepan, a wooden platter, a 
coffee-pot, and a bundle of dried herbs. 


198 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Snups ran off to the farmhouse, and the head 
cook came up close to Lavender and whispered : 

“ I will tell you all ! ” 

“ Oh, do!” said Lavender. 

“ In the first place,” said he, “ I have run away! ” 
“ You don’t say so! So have we! ” 

“ But why have I run away? ” Here he jumped 
up off the milestone and postured before Lavender, 
pouring out his arms like an actor in a melodrama. 

“ Why? I say.” He sat down again and sank 
his voice to a whisper. “ Why but because I was 
in danger every minute of being turned into a cock- 
roach or a caterpillar or a spider or a cricket. Yes, 
Julia has grown so suspicious that we are none of 
us safe, and the cat tells her all we think. First 
there were the poor wood-creatures, they are all 

turned into ”/ 

“ Caterpillars ! ” cried Lavender. 

“ You know all about it? Then there’s no need 
for me to tell you,” said the cook, quite put out. 

“ No, no, I only guessed, because there were so 
many, and I really don’t know anything. Please go 
on, I do so like to hear you,” said Lavender. 

At that the cook looked happy again, and more 
mysterious than ever. 

“ You might think that was bad enough,” he said, 


The Wizards of Ryetown 199 

u but that was not all. The great thing was that 
there wasn’t room for two of us.” 

“ Two cooks? ” said Lavender, for the cook made 
a long pause and looked hard at the sky, so she was 
afraid he was going to compose poetry, and in that 
case she would have had to wait a long while for 
the end of the story, and longer still for breakfast. 

“ Two cooks ? ” said she, rather loud. 

“ Two poets! ” said the cook. “ And when it 
came to my kitchen-maid writing verses in praise 
of that miser the Judge and that young witch Julia, 
verses so soapy you could wash your hands in 
them ” 

“ Of course ! I quite forgot ! Goody’s at the 
castle ! ” 

“ That’s her name,” said the cook. “ She came 
up last night with a pile of copy-books filled with 
verses ‘ To Julia ’ and that sort of thing, and she 
never lost a moment before she turned up her eyes 
and spouted her verses and coaxed and wheedled 
and flattered and fussed till Julia asked her up into 
the drawing-room. Think of that — when she ought 
to have been washing the supper-plates ! So I put 
them in a heap ready for her and off I came, and 
now they will see whether they like her cooking as 
much as her verses ! ” 


200 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ But did you see anything of a prince?” said 
Lavender, who was much more anxious about that 
than anything else. “ The sentry said he was in the 

toad-hole, and yet ” She stopped, for it was 

such a long story, and had so much explanation 
in it. 

“ No, not a prince that I know of,” said the cook, 
“but a shabby little fellow of a page came up one 
day and asked to see the Prince who’s staying at 
the castle — him that wears pink silk, you know — 
and he did see him too. I know that, for I had to 
send up jam tarts and whipped cream to revive the 
prince after the interview, and Julia had the page 
beaten and put in the toad-hole. But old Martin 
the seneschal and I are very good friends, for he 
knows a good pasty when he tastes one ; so he paid 
me a call next evening and pretended to fall 
asleep by the kitchen fire after he’d been telling 
me how bad they’d beat the boy; so, while he 
took his nap, I took his keys and let out master 
page.” 

“ Oh, you dear good cook ! ” cried Lavender, 
dancing round him, greatly to the surprise of Snups, 
who came up just then with the butter and eggs and 
a nice home-made loaf. So, though she was so 
dreadfully puzzled as to what could have become of 


201 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

Prince Robin, they had to stop talking and light a 
fire and cook the breakfast and eat it. 

Oh! but it was good, with the cool morning air 
blowing the blue smoke of their fire along the road, 
and the birds singing all round them. Over their 
meal they took the cook into their confidence, and 
told him all about the rebellion. He was very 
serious and interested. 

“ Rebellions take a heap of money, so I’ve heard,” 
he said, looking very wise. “ I have only eighteen 
ounces ” 

“ Do you count your money by ounces?” asked 
Snups, amazed. 

“ Kitchen scales,” said the cook; “ saves a lot of 
time.” 

“ Oh, all right, if you like it that way,” said 
Snups. “We haven’t any money, but I mean to 
play at the fair and get some.” 

“ You would get much more with a song,” said 
the cook. 

“ I dare say,” said Snups ; “ but I haven’t got a 
song, and I can’t sing, either.” 

“ Well, I can,” said the cook; “ you let me alone 
for ten minutes.” 

So Snups and Lavender sat on the grass by the 
wayside, and the cook strode up and down the road, 


202 The Wizards of Ryetown 

talking verses to himself and scribbling away on 
bits of paper as hard as he could scribble. At last 
he came up to Snups and tossed him a paper, saying : 
“ make me a tune to that ! ” So Snups tuned up 
his fiddle and made a jolly tune, with a rollicking 
chorus that no one could help joining in — no, not 
even a gravedigger who had had no breakfast, if 
there should be such a sorry individual in Barley- 
borough that day. 

The song was called “ The Contented Cook,” and t 
this is how it ran : 

“ Up in the morning early, 

Beating the eggs and milk, 

Tossing them into an omelette 
Soft as a skein of silk. 

Hearing the merry bacon 
Singing her cheerful song ! 

From breakfast-time to dinner. 

How the day dances along ! 

CHORUS. 

“ Joining the bacon’s song 
Bubbling like a brook 
Baking and boiling all the day long, 

Who wouldn’t be a cook ! 

“ Cakes and joints and puddings, 

Porridge and coffee and tea, 

Broiling and baking and stewing, 

Who can be merry as me ! 

Princes and Kings and Bishops, 

Emperors, Barons, and Dooks 
May frolic, but in my opinion 
They’d all of them rather be cooks ! 


The Wizards of Ryetown 203 

CHORUS. 

“ How the day dances along ! 

Kettles that bubble like brooks ! 

Princes and Kings and Bishops, 

How they would like to be cooks ! ” 

So they tried it over together again and again, 
and all the time the cook whipped the omelettes and 
mixed the cakes and stirred the porridge, and when 
there was nothing else to be done he danced, some- 
times alone and sometimes with Lavender, hand in 
hand, and very pretty and jolly it all was. Lav- 
ender and Snups were a little doubtful about the 
grammar of the poetry in one place, but they did not 
like to say anything, and, after all, it did not much 
matter. 

But now people on their way to the fair began to 
appear on the road, so Snups packed up his fiddle 
and off they set, and it wasn’t long before they, too, 
arrived there. The place was now alive with people, 
and the song and dance were most successful, for to 
see a fat head cook with a white cap and coat act- 
ing and twirling and dancing with a pretty, golden- 
haired little girl and accompanied by a boy who 
played the fiddle so wonderfully, was a thing so new 
that people actually left the whirligorounds to see 
it, the gingerbread stalls were deserted, the owners 
stretching their ears to catch the sound of Snups’ 


204 The Wizards of Ryetown 

fiddle, while the Fat Man and the mountebanks bade 
fair to earn no dinner or supper. Farthings and 
ha’pennies and pennies, threepenny pieces, and even 



The Fat Head Cook Dancing with a Pretty, 
Golden-Haired Little Girl. 

sixpences, showered at their feet, and they had only 
to pick them up. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 205 

But when a great banging of drums and tootling 
of flutes announced that the circus was open, the 
clowns ran in and out among the people making 
such absurd faces and saying such absurd things 
that no one could help going into the tent to see 
what more there was inside. 

Then the crowd round the contented cook grew 
thinner, and at last there were only a few children 
left who had no one to take them to the circus; so 
the cook and Snups and Lavender, after they had 
put all the money into the saucepan and tied it down 
with a spare fiddle-string, paid their sixpences and 
went into the circus-tent with all the rest. 

I expect every one who reads this story has been 
to a circus, so I need not describe this one at Barley- 
borough fair nor tell you how wonderfully the 
ladies rode round on two horses at once, and jumped 
through the hoops so gallantly held up for them by 
the man with the whip ; nor how a clever pony with 
ribbons in his mane pretended he was a recruiting 
sergeant, beat a drum with his hoofs, and neighed 
whenever the funny man began to make a speech. 
It was not so very different from other circuses, but 
the cook and Lavender and Snups enjoyed it very 
much, perhaps because they had earned the six- 
pences they paid at the door. 


206 The Wizards of Ryetown 

But Lavender kept looking here, there, and every- 
where for a green rose. 

There were plenty of pages with roses as well as 
buttons in their caps, red and blue and white and 
yellow, but never a one was green, for green, you 
must know, in that part of the world means discon- 
tent, and that is why it is the right symbol for a 
revolution. 

Lavender indeed began to feel quite anxious, and 
to think that perhaps Julia had caught her page 
again and locked him up, or something else as 
dreadful; and as time went on, and no green rose 
appeared, even the presence of sensible Snups and 
the jolly head cook could not make her happy. 

“ Let us earn some more money,” said the cook, 
seeing her sad little face, and thinking to distract 
her thoughts, “ revolutions are frightfully expensive 
things.” 

“ How good you are ! ” said Lavender. She 
thought such a vain little man must dislike singing 
and dancing for pennies before the common crowd 
at a fair, but in that she was mistaken; he liked it 
very much. 

So they began again. The cook sang, and Lav- 
ender danced, and between times Snups played 
most delightful waltzes and polkas, but so many of 


The Wizards of Ryetown 207 

the people had spent all their money, and so many 
of the children had been taken home, that the pen- 
nies did not come in so fast, and Lavender had to go 
round with the wooden platter and ask for them. 
She did not like this, it seemed so like a beggar, 
but she knew that that was all nonsense, for they 
had played and sung their best, and given a great 
deal of pleasure, so she put a good face on it and 
went in and out, saying, “ Won’t you give me a 
penny for the contented cook ? ” But for all that 
the pennies came slower and slower. 

But what was this ! What was happening at the 
other end of the field ? 

There was the sound of a bell, and all the people 
who were still listening to the contented cook turned 
round, and seeing others running, ran too, so the 
cook left off in the middle of his song, Snups packed 
up his fiddle, and they all three set off to see what 
it could be. 


CHAPTER XIV 


XTbe Siege of tbe JSlacb Castle 

C LANG went the dinner-bell, and “ Hola- 
Hola!” shouted a clear young voice, till a 
great crowd had assembled. It was just the right 
moment for some fresh interest to begin, for the 
circus was over, the folks were tired of merry-go- 
rounds, and, besides, they had spent all their money ; 
here was something new and exciting to be seen 
without a penny to pay. 

The very first thing that Lavender saw as they 
hurried to the place where the bell was ringing was 
— a page's flat cap with a green rose in it! 
That was quite enough for her. She rushed 
through the people, never seeing Mrs. Spice and 
Mrs. Pot, who stared after her, nor the police-pig, 
who tried to look as if he had been doing his duty 
all day instead of spending his time at the sweet- 
stalls; right into the front row she struggled, with 
the cook and Snups close behind her. 

There was the page, sure enough, standing on a 
large box, and very handsome he looked except for 
208 


The Wizards of Ryetown 209 

that stiff red hair, while beside him was the thin 
boy clanging, clanging, clanging at a dinner 
bell. 

The page saw Lavender in a moment, and smiled 
at her and shook his head as if to say “ not yet,” 
and then the bell stopped clanging and he began to 
speak. 

“ Good people,” he said, “ I have got a fairing for 
you all; and what do you think it is? Not good 
jokes, like the clowns’, nor games like Aunt Sally, 
nor music like those gentlemen here supply” (he 
nodded towards the cook and Snups), “nor nice 
things to eat ” (he looked towards Mrs. Spice and 
Mrs. Pot, who had been doing a roaring trade), 
“ but what do you think this fairing is ? ” 

“ A sermon, p’raps ? ” said a pert fellow in the 
crowd. 

“ No, nor a sermon^ though you’d be none the 
worse for that. No ; I have a piece of news for you. 
‘Good news?’ you ask. ‘No, bad news,’ say I. 
I’ve come straight from the castle, and the Judge is 
going to levy a new tax — sixpence a head on all 
the babies — and Julia wants twenty-five new house- 
maids to take the place of those who ran away yes- 
terday on account of the caterpillars and having had 
no wages since five years come Tuesday.” 


210 The Wizards of Ryetown 

The crowd hooted and hissed and booed, and 
shouted “ Down with the Judge!” and “ Down 
with Julia!” But some, who did not belong to 
Ryetown, and were therefore not in the Judge’s 
dominions, called out, “ How do you know ? ” and 
“ Are you a runaway page? ” 

The page looked a little bit angry, but he only 
laughed. 

“ All right,” he said ; “ if you don’t believe me I’ll 
bring some witnesses. Goody Butler, what have 
you got to say ? ” He addressed a poor old woman 
who was eagerly pressing to the front. 

“What have I got to say?” mumbled she; 
“ quite enough, I think. The Judge took away my 
three good sons to fight his wars, and when they 
were all killed and I was left alone, I went up to the 
castle to claim the pension he promised to all as got 
killed in the wars. What d’ye think he said, my 
dears? He said as my sons were not killed at all, 
but had got lost playing a game of hide and seek 
with their own comrades, and he never give me a 
penny — not a penny, my dears. And Julia came 
and jeered at me and glared at me, till I wouldn’t go 
to that castle again if ’twere to save my life. No, 
my dears, I wouldn’t, for I’m only a weak old 
woman ; but here, my lad, are my nephews and my 


21 I 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

grandnephews ready to fight the Judge if so be 
you’ll take them with you ! ” 

“ Is there any one else/’ cried the page, “ to tell 
us what a good fellow the Judge is, and what a kind 
lady is Julia? ” 

Then three broad-shouldered and broad-handed 
men came up to the box where the page was stand- 
ing. 

“ What have you got to say ? ” he asked them. . 

The eldest and biggest stepped forward and said : 

“ I be a blacksmith, and he ” — here he poked the 
man on his left with his broad thumb — “ he be a 
wheelwright, and he ” — here he poked the man on 
his right with his other broad thumb — “ he be a 
painter. Now I shoed the Judge’s horses, and he 
made his coach, and he painted it, but when us went 
for our pay he says to we : 

“ 4 Good men,’ says he, ‘ I will pay you as soon 
as the sun rises in the west.’ 

“‘Well, that’s all right,’ says we; ‘we ben’t so 
poor but we can wait a few days.’ But though we 
be all early risers and looked every morning, we 
never saw un rise anyways in the west, and now 
we’ve put our savings together and been to an 
astronomer, an’ an awful costly man he were, and 
he tells us as the sun don’t never rise in the west, 


212 The Wizards of Ryetown 

and we think as the Judge knew that hisself, and it 
were far from the right thing of him. So here we 
be, sir, with our sons and our apprentices, if so be 
we’re good enough to help you take the castle.” 

As soon as all these men had ranged themselves 
behind the page and the thin boy, a pretty little girl 
ran out from the crowd and looked in the page’s 
face appealingly. She held a small box in her 
hands, and often raised the lid and looked in, crying 
and weeping most pitifully, till Lavender almost 
wept too, she was so sorry for her. 

“ What is it, my dear? ” said the page. 

“ My pretty guinea-pig! ” sobbed the child; “ he 
ran away into the wood, just for a little fun, and 
when I went to find him — loo-ook ! ” She opened 
the box, and there was a fat green caterpillar. 

“ But how do you know that is your guinea- 
pig? ” asked the page. 

“ By the look in his eyes,” said the little girl, 
“ and all my playfellows say the same, and they all 
want to go and kill that cruel, cruel Julia.” 

She hugged the box, and beckoned to a cluster of 
children who had wormed their way to the front 
of the crowd. 

“ All these girls and boys loved my guinea-pig ; 
if you will, have them to help to take the castle.” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 213 

With things going on at this rate, very nearly 
the whole assembly was soon ready to march against 
the black castle, for all the husbands of all the 
women who didn’t want to have their babies taxed, 
and all the sweethearts of all the girls who didn’t 



“My Pretty Guinea-Pig,” Sobbed the Child. 


want to go as housemaids to Julia, and all the chil- 
dren who wanted to follow the band, and Mrs. Pot 
and Mrs. Spice, and all the clowns and acrobats, for 
they are ready for anything that turns up — in fact 
almost every one in the field — was ready to follow 



214 The Wizards of Ryetown 

the page wherever he chose to lead them. But the 
police-pig said his duties would detain him in Rye- 
town, for he was a regular coward. 

As soon as they were all in good order for the 
march, the page looked straight at Lavender and 
said : “ Now, Princess,’’ and Lavender sprang to 
his side, and he stuck a green rose in her golden 
hair, and off they set. 

The page and Lavender rode first on two of the 
beautiful circus horses, which bent their necks and 
stepped as proudly as if they knew what brave young 
folks they carried. The cook came next, and Snups, 
playing a stirring march, while the circus band came 
at the end to keep the rear together. As soon as 
they were well out on the road, the head cook 
poured all the money out of the saucepan into the 
page’s pockets, and very heavy it made them. 

If the people of Ryetown had stood in the streets 
to watch the procession the night before, what did 
they now, when . the page and his army passed 
through; and they saw their own sons and daugh- 
ters and uncles and aunts who had gone to the fair 
in the morning come back not in little merry groups 
to their suppers at home, but marching along, sing- 
ing to the music of the band and never looking right 
or left. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 215 

“ Oh, deary me! ” cried Mrs. Peterkin, when she 
saw Snups. “ Oh ! oh ! He’s bound to spoil his 
best clothes ! ” 

“ Oh, deary me!” cried Mr. Peterkin. “He’ll 
never have enough to eat! Here, Snups! Wait a 
minute, Snups ! ” He dashed into the shop and out 
again. “ Catch, Snups ! ” He threw him a pound 
of cheese, a box of chocolates, and a ham, so that 
Snups had as much as he could do to carry it all 
and his fiddle as well. After that Mr. and Mrs. 
Peterkin had to go into the house, for it was more 
than they could do to hold Buttons and Perky while 
the army was in sight. 

As soon as the other stay-at-homes saw what Mr. 
Peterkin had done, they all went and fetched good 
things out of their shops and larders and brought 
them to the army, so that the page had no need to 
buy so much as a single loaf to feed his revolution. 
But he went to the armourers and the bow-and- 
arrow makers and the battering-ram manufac- 
turers, and bought weapons for every one, big 
and little. Then he made a beautiful speech in 
the market square, and they all started off for the 
castle. 

Of course it was too late to do anything that 
night, so they camped out in the wood and cooked 


216 The Wizards of Ryetown 

their suppers over fires of sticks. You can imagine 
what a delicious one the cook made for Lavender 
and the page (for leaders must be always well fed), 
and how he ran round afterwards to all the pots 



and kettles on the other stick fires and gave a stir 
here and a poke there, and popped in salt here and 
sugar there, till they were all as merry as grigs and 






The Wizards of Ryetown 217 

did not care a button for caterpillars, though I am 
afraid a few did tumble off the branches into their 
broth. 

After supper Lavender and the page and the cook 
and Snups held a council of war in the fern-brake 
and decided to attack the castle first thing in the 
morning, and the page and Snups struck up a friend- 
ship there and then, and there was a great deal to 
talk about before they went to bed; but at last no 
one but the sentries was left awake in the whole 
army, for the rest curled up in the soft leaves and 
ferns and never turned over till morning, for I can 
tell you they were tired. 

The siege began at dawn merrily enough. The 
archers shot with their bows and arrows, and tore 
two of the crimson banners that flaunted over the 
towers, and the rammers brought out their batter- 
ing-rams and knocked yards of the black paint off 
the castle walls, — for you must know the castle was 
not really black, only painted so to frighten timid 
people, — and swords were flourished and horses 
pranced, and the page was here, there, and every- 
where. Julia looked out of her window and flashed 
her eyes as terribly as ever she could, but no one 
was frightened, for it is a very comfortable feeling 
to be a whole army. So Julia was vexed, and went 


2 1 8 The Wizards of Ryetown 

inside and beat the black cat dreadfully for not tell- 
ing her about the revolution. 

But just as the sun had come over the tops of the 
trees, a great, lumbering wagon, such as is used 
for carrying trunks of trees, came slowly creaking 
along out of the forest. Six men rode in it, and 
they were dressed like woodcutters, and had long, 
rough hair and beards, and wore broad straw hats 
and axes in their belts. When they saw the gallant 
army, and the archers and the rammers and the 
horses and the flashing swords, they stopped their 
long-tailed horses and opened their mouths wide, 
and asked what this might be and who was the 
leader of this brave array. So the page stepped 
up and told them he was the leader, and how they 
were going to overthrow the wicked Judge and his 
wicked castle and the wicked witchcrafts of his 
daughter, and set up a just ruler in his place. Well, 
they got down from the cart, and stood all round 
him as if to listen, and as they listened they edged 
closer and closer to the castle gates, and just as the 
page was asking them if they would not join his 
army, one of them gave a signal to the others, and 
before you could say “ snap,” they had all caught 
hold of him and carried him off into the castle ! For 
you will have guessed that they were no woodcutters 


The Wizards of Ryetown ±ig 

at all, but men of the Judge’s army, whom he had 
disguised as simple men to capture the page by a 
trick. 

Here was a terrible thing! The archers stopped 
shooting, the rammers stopped ramming, and Lav- 
ender burst into tears ! 

They were without a leader. The gamekeeper 
tried, and the bookseller tried, and the mayor tried, 
and so did Snups and Mrs. Spice; but not one of 
them knew how to lead the army against the castle. 

“ Oh, Snups, dear Snups ! What are we to do? ” 
cried Lavender. “ Can’t you think of any plan to 
get my poor page out ? I know Julia will do some- 
thing dreadful to him if he’s left in there ! ” 

But Snups could not think of a thing. 

While they were looking at one another and feel- 
ing very miserable, the head cook, who was close by, 
suddenly jumped two feet in the air, took Lavender 
by both hands and forced her to dance just as they 
had done at the fair. 

“ Oh, don’t ! ” cried Lavender. “ How can you 
when I’m so unhappy ! ” 

“ But I’ve got an idea! ” shouted the cook, jump- 
ing higher than ever and he drew Lavender and 
Snups close to him one on each side, and whispered, 
“ the Dust-window.” 


220 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ We haven’t the least idea what you mean ! ” they 
both said. 

“ Come with me ! ” said the cook. 

Then he took them to the back wall of the castle, 
where there were no windows, only a tiny square 
hole far above their heads, that the housemaids used 
to throw dust out of. 

“ Now if some one could only get through that 
way and go into the great hall and say the Word, all 
the people in the castle would turn into creeping 
things, and he could let us all in without any 
trouble.” 

“ It’s a good plan! ” said Snups doubtfully. 

“ Yes, it’s a good plan ! ” said Lavender, “ if only 
the hole is big enough. Are you sure a person 
could get through? ” 

“ Well, I once put a fox-terrier through from the 
inside when the cat was after him,” said the cook, 
“ but it was rather a tight fit.” 

“ Try me! Oh, please try me! ” said a voice be- 
hind them, and there was the thin boy. “ I’m sure 
I can get in. Please, sir,” he said to the cook, “ was 
it a thin fox-terrier ? ” 

“ No, it was a fat one,” said the cook. 

“ Then I’m sure I can get in ! ” said the thin boy, 
“ if you’ll give me a shove up.” 


221 


The Wizards of Ryetown 

So Lavender told him exactly what he was to do — 
how he must stand in front of the statue at the bot- 
tom of the staircase in the grand hall and say : 

“ Deesum, Daysum, 

Merrywaysum, 

Markum, 

Parkum, 

Rare ! ” 

three times, and above all he must not be the very 
least little bit afraid, whatever happened. 

“ You can trust me for that/’ said the thin boy. 

So the head cook stood underneath the hole with 
his hands on his knees in the position of a boy play- 
ing leapfrog, Snups got up on his broad back, and 
still he could not reach up to the hole. So Lavender 
climbed on to Snups’ shoulders, and then the thin boy 
on to her shoulders, and when he was there he could 
just reach the little window. Up he jumped and in 
he went without any of the castle people seeing, for 
they never thought of keeping watch over such a 
queer little hole as that. 

Oh, what an anxious time they had waiting for 
him to come back! The cook, who was the most 
hopeful of the three, went round to the front of the 
castle, almost near enough for the castle archers to 
shoot him, expecting every minute to see the castle 
doors swing open, and the thin boy call them all to 


222 The Wizards of Ryetown 

go in and rescue the page and divide all the wonder- 
ful things between them. 

But the great doors never opened. 

Lavender and Snups watched the dust-hole. A 
long while passed, at least it seemed a long while to 
them, and then — a large spider ran out of the hole 
and down the wall and straight towards them ! 

They were so terrified they clung to one another, 
for it was such a strange large spider, and came so 



They Were so Terrified They Clung to 
One Another. 


fast towards them, and had such a human look in its 
eyes. Snups held his sword towards it, and the 
spider ran up the blade and stood on the hilt and 
little tears dropped from its bright eyes. 

“ You poor thing! ” said Lavender, “ is this 
Julia's doing? ” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 223 

Now I can only suppose that Julia had not quite 
time to complete the spell, when she turned the thin 
boy into a spider, for he answered in his own 
voice. 

“ It didn’t act. I went into the hall, and no one 
was about, and I looked at the statue and said Dee- 
sum, Daysum and the rest of it three times and noth- 
ing happened, and I wasn’t the least atom afraid till 
Julia came and chased me away, saying dreadful 
things,” here the spider’s six legs all shook under 
him, “ and she tried to tread on me, but she didn’t 
know about the dust-hole, so I got away to tell you.” 

“ I know! ” cried Lavender, after thinking deeply, 
“ it’s that cow y nasty, treacherous thing ! she’s given 
me the wrong spell, I’m certain she has ; but I’ll go, 
I will, and make her give me the right one, if she 
tosses me into the moon first ! ” 

So she gave the spider into the charge of the cook, 
who promised to take the greatest care of it, and 
went back to the army and told it what they had 
been doing, and how she was going to the cow to 
make her tell the truth, whether she liked it or 
not. 

The army offered to come, too. 

“ No,” she said, “ you must stay where you are 
and try all the proper siege ways to take the castle. 


224 The Wizards of Ryetown 

and when I come back with the right spell, I hope 
you’ll be quite ready to beat down the front door for 
me to get in and say it.” 

Well, they said they’d try, but to tell you the 
truth, they were getting rather tired of it. 


CHAPTER XV 

Ifoow tbe Cow Spoke tbe Crutb at Xast 


N OW Lavender wanted to set off on her errand 
by herself. 

“ Ell wheedle that old cow,’" said she to Snups. 
“ I know what I’ll do ! I’ll tell her she shall come to 
my first drawing-room after I’m crowned queen. Of 
course I should have to let her do it, for I’m sure the 
spell would not act, however right it was, if I were 
thinking of breaking my word. But I could bear 
that, I could even bear the cow coming with a pink 
parasol and ribbons on her tail, if I can only get into 
this dreadful castle and rescue my page out of his 
danger, and I believe that cow would do anything on 
earth to come to a queen’s drawing-room.” 

“ That’s a very good idea, of course,” said Snups, 
“ but for my part I hold with frightening her. It’s 
the only way with people of that sort. She only 
hangs to Julia now because she’s frightened of what 
spells Julia may cast on her if she beats us in this 
fighting business, and I want to make the cow still 
more frightened of us than of Julia. But anyway 
I’m coming with you. I shan’t let you go alone, 
? 2 § 


226 The Wizards of Ryetown 

goodness knows what might happen. But my plan 
won’t interfere with yours, Princess, I’ll take care of 
that.” 

“ We can try a little each way,” said Lavender. 

So they said good-bye to the cook and the spider 
and the rest of the army, and set off. 

They hadn’t gone so very far through the wood 
before they met a long string of caterpillars, four 
abreast, marching towards them most orderly up the 
path. In front, marching on his tail, was an 
enormous light green one, with a large privet leaf in 
his mouth. Perhaps you know the sort I mean ; they 
are as gay as a colonel of hussars, and have purple 
stripes on their sides and live in privet hedges. 
Snups wanted to go on, and not waste any time, but 
Lavender said : 

“ Poor little dumb things, perhaps they want us to 
do something for them.” 

So she knelt down and sure enough all the cater- 
pillars stopped, and the large one came forward and 
laid the leaf he was carrying before her. She 
picked it up and looked at it, while all the little cater- 
pillars looked at her. It was covered all over with 
tiny writing, so small that if Snups had not had a 
magnifying glass in his pocket they would never 
have known what was on it. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 227 

“ How could caterpillars write?” do you say? 
Well, if you look long enough in the wood and the 
garden, you will find a leaf with curious scrawly 
marks all over the back. You will not be able to 
read it, but that is because you have not learnt the 
language, but it will be a caterpillar’s letter, most 
likely — or perhaps a leaf out of a young caterpillar’s 
exercise book. 

Lavender and Snups bent over the leaf, and this 
is what they saw. (At least they saw it as soon as 
they had got the toffy off the magnifying glass, for it 
was dreadfully sticky from going to school with 
Snups. ) 

“ Dear Lavender [the letter ran] : We were once 
the Woodland People, and Julia has turned us into 
dumb weak caterpillars, to crawl on short legs and 
eat leaves for the rest of our lives unless some brave 
soul can turn her own spells against her and save us. 

“ Oh, help us, dear Lavender, and we will love you 
more than ever and help you if ever you need the 
help of Woodland People. 

(Signed) 

“ Fallow Deer, 

“ Gray Wolf, 

" Chiefs of the Woodland People ” 


228 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Now caterpillars are dumb, but they are not at .all 
deaf, so when Lavender spoke to them and said that 
she should never rest until the tyrannical Judge and 
Julia the witch were conquered, and all the people 
they had oppressed and bewitched were set free, they 
all raised themselves on their tails and bowed low 
before her ; and when you come to think of it that is 
about the only way a caterpillar can show its feel- 
ings. 

“ Now we must go on,” said Lavender to them, 
“ for we are going to fetch the Word that shall Do 
the Deed.” 

So the caterpillars all crawled away under the 
leaves and Lavender and Snups hurried on. 

They had not gone far on their way after they 
were out of the wood before they heard a most 
enormous bellowing and stamping. 

“ That’s the bull’s voice,” said Lavender. 
“ What can be the matter with him? ” 

Sure enough when they came to the gate that led 
into the bull’s garden, they saw it was fastened up 
with barbed wire and lightning conductors and tall 
spiked park palings fixed in front of it, and inside 
there was the bull a perfect picture of fury, his 
horns festooned with the geraniums he had rooted 
up. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 229 

“ What has happened ? ” they cried, “ and who 
has fastened you up like this ? ” 

The bull did not look very kindly at Lavender at 
first. 

“ You made me help that girl off that hedge,” he 
growled, “ and if she was sticking there still as she 
ought to be, she could not have sent a lot of abomi- 
nable menials down from the castle to torment me. 
They waited till I was asleep, — heard me snoring, I 
suppose, — tied up my own gate and stuck in that 
horrid paling — locked me up on my own premises in 
fact — and what British bull can possibly be supposed 
to stand that! Then the cow looks in every half 
hour or so and asks me if I am better — Better 
indeed ! ” 

Here he rattled round the yard, tore up some more 
geraniums, bellowed aloud, and wept for pure rage. 

“ Look here ! ! ” shouted Snups through the rail- 
ings. He had to shout at the top of his voice, the 
bull was making such a racket. “ Look here, let by- 
gones be bygones, and listen to us, for we’ve got a 
plan! Here are three of us, and we none of us 
have much reason to love that neat young lady you 
speak of” 

“ Your talk’s too clever for me by half. Say what 
you want to say in English,” said the bull, 


230 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ Well, look here,” said Snups, not at all offended, 
“ if we let you out will you join in with us, help us 
to worry the right word out of that cow, and come 
up to the castle and join our army ? We want some 
strong, sensible fellows, I can tell you! And then 
when we’ve taken the place, we’ll give you Miss 
Goody as your share of the plunder. I’m sure no 
one will object now to your tossing her into any 
number of hedges you like.” 

The bull listened to Snups’ harangue with great 
attention. Lavender would have put in a word of 
mercy for Goody, but Snups nudged her hard and 
asked her to help him to untie the knot of the cord 
the palings were fastened with. He said he could 
not manage it himself. 

Well, they got the bull out and soothed his 
feelings as well as they could, and told him again 
and again how they relied on his discretion, till 
he really looked rather more civilised, and then they 
set out for Cowslip Lodge, where Mrs. Cow re- 
sided. 

They had not very far to go. 

“ I’ll try my plan first,” said Lavender. “ You 
shall both hide in the shrubbery, and if you hear me 
sneeze you can come in, but if the cow and I come 
out together you will know I have succeeded, and 


The Wizards of Ryetown 231 

you must follow us quietly up to the castle without 
being seen.” 

Well, they agreed to all that, and Lavender went 
up to the door and gave a little tabbering knock like 
an afternoon caller. 

“ Now this is kind,” said the cow, swimming 
across the drawing-room and pretending not to be 
amazed at the sight of her visitor. But Lavender 
was not going to waste any time listening to compli- 
ments. 

“ Mrs. Cow,” she said, “ the last time I met you 
you made me a present I did not ask for, a present of 
a certain word. But there must have been some 
mistake about it, for now we try it we find it won’t 
act.” 

“ Indeed ! ” said the cow. 

“ Of course you know that as soon as this castle 
is won I shall be a queen, and I shall be pleased to see 
you in my palace as soon as I have my furniture in 
order. But before I can invite you, I must have this 
word right,” said Lavender. 

“ You say it really would not act? How extraor- 
dinary ! ” said the cow, pretending to be grieved, 
but Lavender caught a cunning glance in her 
eye. 

“ Mrs. Cow,” she said, “ will you tell me what the 


232 The Wizards of Ryetown 

spell is that can turn all the castle people into creep- 
ing things? ” 

“ Are you sure you said what I told you ? Dee- 
sum, Daysum and the rest of the verse, standing op- 
posite to the statue at the bottom of the staircase in 
the grand hall ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Lavender, very sternly. She could 
be stern when she liked. 

“ And it had no effect at all ? ” 

“ None,” said Lavender. 

“ Well, try it backwards,” said the cow, and could 
not suppress a grin. 

“ Is that the right spell, and the whole spell?” 
said Lavender, solemn and stern as a judge, for she 
found it a much harder task than she had thought to 
be soft and wheedling to some one she did not 
like. 

“ My dear Princess ! Do you think I could or 
would deceive you? ” 

“ Perhaps not,” said Lavender, “ and in that case 
I am sure you will not mind if I ask you to swear 
BY YOUR CRUMPLED HORN.” 

The cow turned red and hummed and hawed and 
looked this way and that and fanned herself with 
her pocket-handkerchief. But swear by her crum- 
pled horn she daren't. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 233 

Then Lavender sneezed. 

Snups and the bull came in directly, without so 
much as stopping to rap at the door. 

The cow began to giggle. 

“ My dear Mr. Bull,” she said, “ you can’t think 
how glad I am to see you about again ! ” 

The bull did not deign to answer. He only stuck 
out his chin and bellowed so loud that the ornaments 
fell off the chimney-piece, and the clock stopped. 

“ I am sorry to disturb your afternoon’s arrange- 
ments,” said Lavender, “ but I’m afraid I shall have 
to ask you to come up to the castle with us.” 

“ I grieve to refuse your request,” said the cow, 
“ but I have a particular engagement.” 

Lavender did not quite know what to say to that. 
She did not want the bull to damage Mrs. Cow’s 
drawing-room (he had a picture-frame on one 
horn and a bamboo table on the other, as it was), 
and she did not see how to make her go up to the 
castle if she didn’t want to. She was such a large 
cow. 

Suddenly “ squeek — squake ! ” went Snups’ fiddle ; 
he had been quietly getting it out of its case while 
they were talking. 

Mrs. Cow turned pale and fairly shook in her 
shoes. Snups grinned and played two notes more. 


234 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Mrs. Cow gasped, and toddled up and down in great 
agitation. 

“ Squeek — squake ! ” 

Mrs. Cow went down on her knees. 

“ Oh, my dear young gentleman ! ” she twittered, 
“ oh, my handsome young gentleman ! I’ll go to 



He Had a Picture-Frame on One Horn and a 
Bamboo Table on the Other. 

the castle — I’ll do anything you like — if you’ll only 
put your instrument away ! ” 

“ All right,” said Snups, “ glad you’ve changed 
your mind! Off you go then, never mind your 
bonnet ; ladies first, and age before honesty ! ” And 
so he bustled her off. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 235 

As soon as they were outside Lavender whispered 
to Snups : 

“ How did you do it ? ” 

“ It’s the tune the old cow died of,” whispered 
Snups. “ I learnt it when I was a small boy off 
an old wizard, while I fished for tench with him 
in the black pool on half holidays. It’s come in 
useful, hasn’t it?”’ 

“ You’re the cleverest boy and the nicest boy I 
ever met, except my page. I don’t see how 
princes can be any nicer than ordinary people,” said 
Lavender. 

So you see her ideas had changed since she had 
had so many adventures. 

So up the lane and across the fields they went, the 
bull keeping close to the cow and bellowing in her 
ear, till Lavender, who walked behind with Snups, 
was almost sorry for her — not quite, for it takes a 
very wonderful person indeed to be quite sorry for a 
traitor who is still smiling at the success of her 
treachery. 

Lavender and Snups looked this way and that, 
when they came to the wood, and they saw many and 
many pale little caterpillar faces watching them 
anxiously from the ferns and branches. But they 
were glad to see none in the path, for the bull never 


236 The Wizards of Ryetown 

had any discretion with his feet, and the cow was 
short-sighted. 

Night was coming on, too, and there were a good 
many miles’ yet to travel, so they camped in the wood, 
taking turns to keep awake and guard the cow, and 
wishing very much for the morning. 


CHAPTER XVI 

Mbat tbe /IDasor anb /Ibrs. Spice Bib 


W HEN Lavender and Snups had gone the army 
was left all to itself in the wood in front of 
the castle. Some of the townspeople got tired of the 
whole thing and went home, and the rest were very 
lazy and wandered about looking for birds' nests and 
fishing for trout in the brook instead of fighting. 

Now the Mayor of Ryetown was a tall man with a 
flat white face and a queer little open mouth like a 
codfish. He was sitting on a stone trying to mend 
a rent in his blue mayoral robe with the fur trim- 
ming, when Mrs. Spice came up to him and stood a 
little way off with her fists on her hips. 

“ Your worship ! 99 said she. 

The Mayor was a meek man and rather frightened 
at women in general and Mrs. Spice in particular, so 
he only said : 

“Can I do anything for you, Mrs. Spice? I'm 
quite at your service.” 

“ It's a pity to see this sort of thing going on ! ” 
said Mrs. Spice with a sort of all-round-about jerk 
of her head. 


237 


238 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ What sort of thing? ” said the Mayor, looking 
up and down at the sky and the trees and the cater- 
pillars, and pretending he did not understand, “ what 
sort of thing, Mrs. Spice? ” 

“ Those two young people think a good deal of 
themselves, your worship, don't they? ” 

“ Er-er — well, yes, Mrs. Spice, they do.” 

“ Considering the position you hold, sir, it’s odd 



He Was Sitting on a Stone Mending a Rent in 


His Mayoral Robe. 

they should take the lead on themselves in this sort of 
way.” 

“ Er-er — you are right, Mrs. Spice, quite right — 
er-as chief magistrate of Ryetown I think I ought 
to take a more prominent position.” He tucked in 
his fat chin and tried to look proud. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 239 

“ Just what I meant to say, your worship, and if 
you and I were to set to work and take the castle our- 
selves while they are wool-gathering after this spell, 
or whatever it is, it would be the very thing to take 
them down nicely.” 

“ Quite er-nicely, as you say, Mrs. Spice. I will 
at once call the buglers to blow the blast to assemble 
the whole army, and then I will offer myself as their 
leader. Certainly you are right, Mrs. Spice, I am 
chief magistrate.” 

This did not suit Mrs. Spice at all, so she stuck 
her fists on her hips quite fiercely and said : 

“ And what part am / to take, your wor- 
ship?” 

“ Oh, er-you — er-you shall take charge of the 
commissariat,” said the Mayor. 

“ Commy what? No, thank you,” said Mrs. 
Spice. “ I must be a general, the same as you, or 
I’ll wash my hands of the whole affair.” 

This frightened the Mayor, for of all things he 
hated the idea of leading an army by himself, es- 
pecially if Mrs. Spice was going to be in a bad tem- 
per, but still he could not quite make up his mind 
be co-general with a woman who wore a white apron 
and stood behind a stall in the market square. So 
he hummed and hawed and tried to make com- 


240 The Wizards of Ryetown 

promises till she lost all patience, and began to walk 
off, saying: 

“ Well, you’ll be sorry for it, Mr. Mayor, and 
that’s all I can say.” 

Then the Mayor opened his little cod-mouth and 
called her back in a very great hurry, and said that 
she should command one-half of the army, and he 
would have the other, and they would make an attack 
upon the castle that very night when it was dark, one 
at the back and one at the front, and they would be 
absolutely certain to have a great victory, and when 
Lavender and Snups came back (he said), with or 
without the cow, there would be nothing for them to 
do. It was a very pretty plan indeed. 

They found the four buglers paddling in the brook 
and made them put their shoes and stockings on and 
blow the four blasts that would call the whole army 
together in the big glade, and when they had all 
come rambling in, the Mayor and Mrs. Spice stood 
one on each side and chose by turns, just like chil- 
dren playing “ nuts in May.” 

“ I’ll have the cook,” said Mrs. Spice, for she 
choose first because she was a woman. 

“ And I’ll have Peter the gamekeeper,” said the 
Mayor, and so they went on till every one was chosen. 
Then they had a council of war and made their plans 


The Wizards of Ryetown 241 

all complete, and who was to kill whom, and what 
they should do with their prisoners, and how they 
should divide the treasures of the castle; and they 
decided when it was all over to march and meet 



One of the Apprentices Suddenly Stopped Short. 


Lavender and Snups, singing songs of victory, and 
tell them the castle was taken without any help of 
theirs. 

The army was getting tired of birds’-nesting, so 
they cheered three times three and brushed their 
clothes, and took an afternoon nap so that they might 
be quite wide-awake for the night-attack. 


242 The Wizards of Ryetown 

As soon as the hour came the two divisions woke 
and took up their positions, one in the wood in front 
of the castle, one behind, and began to move as 
quietly as they could among the trees and bushes. 
But it was so dark that they could not see each 
other, and could not tell in the least which way they 
were going, for no one had a compass or a weather- 
cock, and could not have seen them if they had. 

Now the vanguard of the Mayor’s division con- 
sisted of Mrs. Pot and three of Mr. Peterkin’s ap- 
prentices, very nice young men, but not used to war. 
As they crept along very quietly a few yards in front 
of the others, one of the apprentices suddenly 
stopped short and whispered : 

“ What was that?” 

When the other one heard that he felt a creepy 
sensation from the curl at the top of his head to the 
very tip of his shoes, and answered with his teeth 
chattering : 

“ I d — d — don’t know.” 

The sound was a sort of whistling moan that came 
down from the tree-tops; it was really and truly 
nothing worse than a great owl, who had come from 
a neighbouring district to the enchanted wood be- 
cause he had heard what a lot of caterpillars were 
in it, and he was very fond of caterpillars. But the 


The Wizards of Ryetown 243 

poor apprentices did not know anything about 
owls. 

They were just beginning to get over their fright, 
when the third apprentice whispered to Mrs. Pot : 

“ W — w — what was that? ” 

It was a creaking and a rustling that seemed to 



“ W— w — what Was That?” Whispered the 
Third Apprentice. 


come from everywhere at once, and being town- 
people they did not know what strange noises a little 
gust of wind can make in a wild-wood. 

Now, when they were feeling all shivery and 


244 The Wizards of Ryetown 

shaky there came a soft whistle out of the darkness. 
That was altogether too much for them, and they 
ran back to their companions. 

“ The Judge’s men are after us ! Fly ! Fly ! ” 

So the whole division flew, vanguard and all, and 
though the Mayor tried to call them back and gave 
them some very hard names, he was not sorry they 
did not obey, for he did not want to fight and he 
was scared himself. 

So on they flew, through ferns and bogs, over 
briars and fallen trees, and when they stopped a 
moment to take breath there were the mysterious 
rustlings still to be heard behind them, and then they 
would set off again helter-skelter. 

All night they had run and run, and little bits of 
the Mayor’s blue robe were hanging on every briar- 
bush, when at last, just as day was breaking and 
they were nearly dead with fatigue, they came out 
into a turnip-field on the other side of the wood miles 
and miles from the castle! 

Oh, but they were glad to see the daylight, and get 
out of the wood and away from these dreadful rus- 
tlings ! As soon as they were fairly away from the 
trees, what do you think they saw ? 

After them out of the wood came Mrs. Spice’s 
division, all muddy and torn just as they were, but 


The Wizards of Ryetown 245 

with a lively look of triumph in their faces. But it 
changed to a stare of astonishment when they saw 
the Mayor. 

“ We thought you were the Judge’s men! ” they 
said. “ Was it you we have been running after all 
night?” 

“ We should rather think it was ! ” said the others. 
“ Why didn’t you say who you were? ” 

“ Why didn’t you say who you were? ” 

So they talked and quabbled, and squabbled and 



Julia Laughed till She Could Laugh no More. 

talked, and ended by finding their way back to the 
camp by different roads, as cross and tired and dirty 
as they possibly could be ; and so that was the end of 
the great night-attack on the castle. 

And Julia heard what had happened and looked 
at them out of her window and laughed till she could 
laugh no more. 

So when Lavender and Snups, with the cow and 



246 The Wizards of Ryetown 

the bull, came up to the camp in the early morning 
sunshine, it was a very miserable army they found 
waiting for them, but they had a hearty welcome 
from every one except Mrs. Spice and the Mayor, 
who were still cross with themselves and everybody 
else, but Lavender asked no questions, for she was 
anxious above all things to be quick to rescue her 
page as soon as she possibly could. 

Now, when they had arrived between the castle 
and the army, Lavender called up a strong guard to 
stand with drawn swords round the cow to see she 
did not run away or give any underhand signal to 
Julia, and then she said very sternly, for she thought 
of her page, and was as hot as fire with anger in- 
side : 

“ Now, cow, if you care for your life, tell me the 
right spell, and the whole spell, to turn the castle 
people into creeping things, and undo all the spells 
with which Julia has bewitched the innocent! ” 

“ It was right what I told you before,” said the 
cow very sulkily. “ Only you’ve got to have the 

black cat in your arms when you say I forgot 

that part.” 

“ Fiddlesticks and broom-handles!” roared the 
bull. “ You forgot on purpose, you red and white 
humbug ! ” 


The Wizards of Ryetown 247 

“ Are you telling the truth now, madam ? ” said 
Snups, politely. “ I should like to know for certain, 
because you are so fond of music, and for my own 
part, I am longing for a little practice.” Here he 
got out his fiddle and bow. 

“ On my word ! On my sacred honour as a quad- 
ruped ruminata ! By my crumpled horn it is ! ” pro- 
tested the cow, and after such a solemn oath even 
Snups was obliged to believe her. 

Well, the plan was this : The army was to attract 
the attention of the Judge’s army, by assailing the 
front of the castle, while the bull, with Lavender on 
his back, made an entrance by butting down the back 
gate. Then they would look for the page and the 
black cat (who had not been seen for days) and 
then — well, then they would see what turned up. 


CHAPTER XVII 


Ube Dtctory 

S O the army obediently 
took up its position in 
front of the castle, and made as 
much noise and commotion as it possibly 
could; Snups mounted guard over the cow and 
amused himself with playing little tunes and telling 
her all the things they would do to her if she proved 
false again; and Lavender mounted on the bull’s 
broad back and held tight to the curls on the top of 
his head. They might have been put there on purpose. 
Bang! Dang! Smash! Crash! 

The great back-gate of the castle broke into a 
thousand splinters and fell before the bull’s great 
head, and he trampled over them into the very court- 
yard Lavender had seen the first day she had come 
to the castle. But now, instead of being crowded 
with men and horses and pages and sightseers, it 
was quite empty ! Not a creature was to be seen as 
Lavender and the bull crossed it ! 

248 


The Wizards of Ryetown 249 

Pack! Tack! Clang! Tang! 

The iron door of the dungeon was a hard nut even 
for the bull to crack, but crack it he did, and down 
it went, and Lavender leaped from his back and 
sprang fearlessly over the fragments into the toad- 
hole. 

“ Page ! Page ! ” she cried. 

“ Princess ! Princess ! ” called a voice out of the 
darkness. 

It was as dark as dark could be, for dungeons are 
darker than cellars, but Lavender had thought of 
that and felt in her pocket for the flint and steel and 
candle-end she had brought with her. But as soon 
as she had struck a light and saw her page’s face 
she forgot everything and dropped the candle in a 
puddle of water, for he was so pale she would not 
have known him if it had not been for his bright, 
dark eyes. 

She ran up to him and put her arms round his 
neck. 

“ I do believe you are better than any prince,” she 
cried, “ and I shall give up looking for Prince Robin 
altogether if you will come and live with me in Lav- 
ender Garden.” 

The page said nothing, only laughed and kissed 
her, and the bull said he was awfully sorry to inter- 


250 The Wizards of Ryetown 

rupt their conversation, but he thought the castle 
folks might be looking them up if they didn’t hurry. 
Suddenly Lavender gave a little shriek. 

“ What have you got in your arms, page? ” she 
cried, “ I’m sure I felt something furry ! ” 

“ It’s only me,” said the black cat. Lavender 
shrank away. 

“ Don’t be afraid, page! ” she cried. “ Keep hold 
of her tight! She’s part of the spell, and if you 
loose her we shall never conquer the castle, or turn 
the Judge and Julia into creeping things. Hold her 
tight ! Don’t be frightened of her ! ” 

The page laughed heartily. “ Frightened, indeed ! 
Why, the poor thing has been with me here the whole 
time. Julia beat her horribly for not knowing about 
our revolution — and small blame to her if she did 
take a day off ; Julia hasn’t given her a holiday since 
she was a kitten — so she. crept in here after me, and 
now she’s going to be our friend. How long have we 
been here, Princess ? A week ? ” 

“ No, indeed, only a day! Oh, you poor boy! ” 
cried Lavender, for now they were out in the day- 
light she could see that as well as being pale he was 
marked with the blows of the whip, and his clothes 
were torn, and here and there on his coat were stains 
of blood, for Julia, finding her spells had no effect on 


The Wizards of Ryetown 251 

one who was so perfectly brave, had had him beaten 
till the very soldiers with the whips asked if it was 
not time to stop. 

But there was no time for pitying him or talking 
at all. 

“ Listen, page,” said Lavender. “ We’ve got the 
right spell at last, and we must go into the hall this 
minute, before any one comes to stop us, and you 
must say it.” 

“ No, no, it is 3'ou who ought to say it, Princess, 
because you found it out, while I was fool enough 
to be tricked and taken prisoner, and I might have 
died in the toad-hole if you had not been so clever.” 

“ No,” persisted Lavender, “ you must say it, be- 
cause you are perfectly brave, while I — well, I 
confess I’ve been frightened almost out of my wits 
two or three times in the last few days.” 

“ Come, make up your minds,” said the bull, “ they 
won’t wait for us.” 

“ Very well,” said the page, “ what is it I have to 
do?” 

“ You must go into the grand entrance hall, and 
there at the bottom of the stairs is a great, ugly 
statue ” 

“ And inside it lives a wicked spirit who is the 
source of all the witch’s power,” interrupted the cat. 


252 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ And you must look straight at it ” 

“ Even if it rolls its eyes at you,” said the cat. 

“ And you must hold ” 

“ Me in your arms,” said the cat. 

“ And you must say in a loud voice, 

“ Deesum, Daysum, 

Merrywaysum, 

Markum, 

Parkum, 

Rare ! " 

“ Three times ! ” said the cat. 

“ I shall not forget,” said the page. 

By this time the bull was nearly exploding with 
suppressed impatience, for the poor thing daren’t 
bellow for fear of attracting attention, and he was 
not used to controlling his feelings. 

So they all set off down the winding passages of 
the castle till at last they came to the grand hall, and 
when they got there there was not a soul about any 
more than there had been in the courtyard. There 
was a good reason for this which I will tell you. 

You have not forgotten Goody, now quite at home 
in the castle. At the very first sound of fighting she 
had crept into the great kitchen bread bin when 
no one was looking, and pulled the lid over herself, 
upside down, so that she could hold it tight by the 
handle. So when everything went quiet, at the 


The Wizards of Ryetown 2 $$ 

time when Lavender and Snups had gone to get the 
Word from the cow, and the army was having its 
after-dinner nap, she thought all danger was over, 
and with several new poems which she had composed 
in the bread-bin, crept quietly up to the drawing- 
room. 

It was a remarkable room, with a bright pink ceil- 
ing with black flashes of lightning painted across it, 



Julia and the Silk Prince Playing Ping-Pong. 


and wall paper to match. Here she found Julia and 
the silk prince playing ping-pong with live dormice, 
— of course it did not wake the mice, but it gave them 
most horrible dreams. The Judge was doing a long- 
sum in arithmetic to find out how many loaves 
eighty-two soldiers would have apiece, if he allowed 
them fifteen loaves among the lot every three weeks, 
and one extra for bank holidays. 


^54 The Wizards of Ryetowtt 

Goody came in with her best curtesy, and with her 
eyes on the toes of her small shoes, to show her 
modesty in the presence of her superiors, began to 
recite. They were not sorry to leave off their occu- 
pations, for it was a hot afternoon, so they sat down 
and listened. 

This is how she began : 

“ The noisy army of our foes. 

Would like to do us harm, 

But with the glorious Julia near, 

We all are cool and calm. 

“ For Julia’s eyes they are so bright, 

And Julia’s mind so strong. 

The foolish army at our gate, 

Flees in a frightened throng. 

“ In his bright golden armour 
Our fine prince is so gay, 

That when he draws his sword out, 

All our foes run away.” 

And so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, for thirty 
hundred bad verses. 

It was a hot afternoon as I said, and perhaps that 
accounts for the fact that first the Judge fell asleep, 
then the silk prince, then Julia, then all the castle 
servants whom Goody had called up to be improved, 
then all the soldiers and sentries who had crowded 
round the door to see what was going on and get a 
glimpse of the pink ceiling, and then the very flies 


The Wizards of Ryetown 255 

upon the window-panes and the spiders in the cor- 
ners. The ping-pong balls were asleep to begin with. 

So when the army, according to their orders, came 
round to the front of the castle and began drumming 
and fifing and everything else that was noisy, the 
castle people all woke up suddenly in great confusion 
of mind and ran to the windows to see what had hap- 
pened. 

“ Ha, ha, ha! ” laughed Julia, “ I know what I’ll 
do ! The cowards ! I’ll give them a good fright ! ” 

Saying this she clapped her hands three times, and 
whistled a psalm-tune backwards, and at the sound 
all the black goblins out of her caves came rushing 
through the wood and jumped on the backs of the 
towns-people, who screamed with fright and pain, for 
the goblins pulled their hair and ears most viciously. 
They rushed away as fast as ever they could, hoping 
to brush off their tormentors against the trees, while 
Julia and the silk prince screamed with laughter and 
held their sides and clapped their hands at the win- 
dows as if they were watching a pantomine. 

But just at that moment a clear voice was heard : 

“ Deesum, Daysum, 

Merrywaysum, 

Markum, 

Parkum, 

Rare ! ” 


256 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Three times this spell was repeated. 

The first time all the little black goblins turned 
into nothing worse than little buzzing black gnats, 
and the townspeople turned back again rather 
ashamed of themselves, for they were honest folks, 
and did not really mean to desert their leaders, only 
goblins they could not stand. 

At the second repetition of the spell the Judge and 
Julia and all their servants and soldiers turned into 
creeping things, and there was no one else left in the 
drawing-room but the false prince and Miss Goody, 
and they nearly died of fright. 

As the sound of the third repetition of the Magic 
Words went ringing up the staircase, there was a 
moment’s hush, and with a rush and a quiver and a 
crackle the castle tumbled to pieces just like a house 
of cards, and then piff — paff ! a little wreath of white 
smoke went up, and nothing more was left of it than 
there is of a soap-bubble when it bursts. And that 
was the end of the siege of the Black Castle. 

They owed something to Goody, you see, for if she 
had not read every one to sleep, the sentinels would 
have been in the Grand Hall, and the page would 
never have got in. 

So there they stood, the page with the cat in his 
arms, Lavender, the bull, Goody, and the false 


The Wizards of Ryetown 257 

prince, and the towns-people in a circle round them 
in a glade of the wood, while away between their feet 
scuttered a lot of little beetles, and among them two 
yellow vipers with shiny eyes, that any one could see 
were the Judge and Julia. 

What a joyful bellow the bull gave as he tramped 
and stamped among them — in five minutes there was 
not a single one left. But the wood seemed alive and 
happy again ; no caterpillars were to be seen, or only 
a proper number of them, but all the dear wood- 
people were back. The old gray fox ran past under 
the bracken, the pigeons cooed in the fir-trees, you 
could hear the tiny crackle of the mice in the grass, 
the pretty rabbits sat up again and washed their faces 
and wondered what had happened, and Lavender 
caught just a glimpse of the white hare’s ears, but he 
popped behind a big mullion when he saw her com- 
ing, for he had the grace to be ashamed of himself. 

The black cat rubbed her head against the page’s 
chin and purred ; and it is a strange thing that from 
that time she never talked any more, and hadn’t the 
very least idea what people were thinking about, but 
became a nice everyday purring cat, just as she would 
have been if Julia had not caught her. 

The false silk prince, who had hidden himself be- 
hind a tree, now tried to get away quietly, and was 


258 The Wizards of Ryetown 

sneaking off among the townsfolk, hoping no one 
would notice, when the thin boy caught sight of him. 
Of course the thin boy had turned back into himself 
again, and was fleeter than ever, though to the end 
of his days he regretted the six legs he had had as a 
spider. The false prince had a good start, but his 
pink silk coat was so bright he could not hide him- 
self, and the thin boy soon caught him, and Snups 
was not far behind, for he had joined the chase. 
So they brought him up to Lavender. 

“ Look here, Princess ! ” said Snups, “ is this that 
prince you were looking for ? ” 

“ No, no, indeed ! ” cried Lavender. “ That is not 
a prince, it is only his clothes that are prince-like! 
This is my prince, if he is only a page. For I have 
learnt a great many things lately, and one of them 
is that a kind brave heart is better than all the silk 
jackets and golden armour in the world.” 

Now the army stared and whispered to each other 
when they saw Lavender turn from this splendid- 
looking prince, and give her hand to the page in his 
poor torn clothes, — worse than my playing clothes, 
Snups said to himself. 

And when the page saw this, he looked at Lav- 
ender, and said, smiling: 

“ Are you quite, quite sure you don’t mind giving 


The Wizards of Ryetown 259 

up the thought of a crown and a kingdom for ever, 
Princess ? ” 

“ Quite, quite sure,” said Lavender. 

“ Oh, Princess, Princess ! ” cried the page at that, 
“ and did you really never guess ? ” 

Then he unbuttoned his ragged coat and drew out 
a gold crown with a withered spray of Lavender 
Blossom fastened firmly in it, then took off his flat 
cap and his stiff red wig. There were his own 
glossy black curls. 

“ Prince Robin, Prince Robin ! Oh, how could 
you do it? ” cried Lavender. 

“ How could I help doing it ? ” said Robin, for we 
need not call him the page any longer. “ When I 
got here, you know, my page was parading in my 
gold armour that I had left in his charge before I 
came to your garden.” 

Here Robin was interrupted by a scuffle at the 
back of the crowd. 

“ Ow — ow — le’ me go ! ” yelled the voice of the 
false prince. 

“ Hold still and I won’t whack you,” replied the 
voice of Snups. 

Prince Robin laughed. 

“ The thief could not be in better hands,” said he. 
“ But as I say, here this little rascal was, dressed up 


260 The Wizards of Ryetown 

and pampered and petted, and there was I with no 
means of making any one believe it was my armour ; 
so I thought the best thing to do was to dress up as 
a page and keep on the spot to wait my chance to 
get hold of the impostor.” He looked round. 
Snups had the false prince by the collar of his silk 
jacket, and was giving him good little shakes every 
now and again, just to help him to understand what 
the Prince was saying. While he was doing this, he 



“ Le’ Me Go ! ” Yelled the False Prince. 

felt the gold armour under the jacket, and stripped 
it off him and brought it to Prince Robin, who put 
it on at once, Lavender and the thin boy helping him 
with the awkward buckles. 

What a real prince he looked, to be sure ! And the 
army thought so too, and cheered with all its might. 
But Prince Robin turned and went on with his story 
to Lavender. 

“ And then you came, and you were so full of the 


The Wizards of Ryetown 261 

thought of being a queen that I wanted to see what 
you would make of plain Robin without the prince.” 

“ And I was ever so unkind to you,” said Lav- 
ender, most terribly distressed. “ I’ve been a per- 
fectly horrid princess ! ” 

“ You are nicer than any one else, at any rate,” 
said Prince Robin earnestly. 

“ I did mean to try to be,” said Lavender, but she 
felt dreadfully humble. 

“ May I come to Lavender Garden ? ” said Prince 
Robin. 

“ I will never go back unless you do,” said Lav- 
ender. 

And so they settled it, and the army cheered, and 
cheered, and cheered again till they heard it plainly 
down in Ryetown, and set the bells a-ringing, and 
lighted a bonfire in the market square, and set on the 
pots to make a banquet to welcome the victors. And 
those who had got so easily tired of the siege and 
gone home, oh, didn't they wish they had stopped to 
see the end of it. 

When the army heard the bells ring for their vic- 
tory they wanted to march into Ryetown that very 
minute and proclaim Prince Robin and Princess Lav- 
ender Lord and Lady of all the land, and crown them 
king and queen ; but Snups, who was tired of holding 


262 The Wizards of Ryetown 

the false prince by the collar of his coat, came up 
just then and asked what he should do with him. 

Prince Robin looked rather serious, for punishing 
people is one of the unpleasant duties of victors, and 
said : 

“ He is a very bad boy, and I don’t know how to 
make him better. I shall let him go, and he will go 
on doing mean things till his own punishment finds 
him. Off you go, young man, for we will have no 
such miserable fellow in our happy procession into 
Ryetown.” 

So Snups, with a final cuff or two, let the thieving 
page go, and that was the end of him as far as this 
story is concerned. 

Then the crowd cheered again and wanted to set 
off, but there was another little business to come first. 
Have you been wondering what Mr. Bull was doing 
all this time ? I will tell you. As soon as the castle 
had tumbled to pieces he caught sight of Goody with 
her manuscript poetry book still in her hand, so he 
left off trampling on beetles, and set off after her, hel- 
ter-skelter, up hill and down dale, and in and out the 
tree-trunks and the fern-brakes and the bramble 
bushes till Goody was in a worse plight than ever she 
was on the top of the prickly hedge; and once he 
would have had her, only she dropped the poetry 


The Wizards of Ryetown 263 

book just in the nick of time, and the blundering; 
fellow stopped to toss it into the top of a tall beech, 
where a pair of wood pigeons used it to line their 
next nest with, and learnt to coo in bad rhythm and 
if you don’t believe me, listen to the pigeons the next 
time you are in a beech-wood. 

But tossing the book did not take the bull long, 
and then he was off after Goody again, and never 
looking where he was going, he caught her up close 
to the glade where the Prince and Princess were, 
and tossed her right to Lavender’s feet. 

So Goody got hold of Lavender’s knees and cried : 

“ Save me ! Save me ! ” 

“ I don’t see how I can,” said Lavender. “ I 
promised you to the bull.” 

But still Goody cried out, “ Save me ! ” and though 
Lavender knew she was an arrant coward and deceit- 
ful as a monkey, she could not help being sorry for 
her. 

“ Mr. Bull,” she said, for he was standing a few 
yards away champing and snorting with impatience, 
“ this is your prisoner, and I have no right to take 
her from you, but if you want to really oblige me, 
you will let me have the punishing of her. You have 
chased her a great deal, and you’ve had one good 
toss; aren’t you contented? ” 


264 The Wizards of Ryetown 

Now the bull had not had half enough of Goody, 
and he wanted another toss as much as any boy ever 
wanted another apple. But he could not refuse Lav- 
ender anything, so he said : 

“ Do what you like with her, Princess, I’ve had a 
little bit of fun with her.” And he turned away 
with a sigh. 

So Lavender said to Goody, who was primming up 
her mouth after screaming so hard, and trying to 
compose a verse to show that she was not in the least 
frightened : 

“ Goody, you must be punished until you learn 
better ways. I banish you to the town of Snipper- 
sneaks in the realm of Nincompoops, and there you 
must stay till you are tired of the company of your 
own sort. And you may take the cow with you. 
Now go, for we do not want any prisoners among 
our happy company when we enter Ryetown.” 

So at last they were ready to set off, and quite 
time, too, if they did not want the good citizens of 
Ryetown to come all the way to meet them. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Back to Xavenfcer (Barfcen 

O FF they set on the bull’s back, Lavender in 
front, with Prince Robin holding her safe, 
while Snups and the cook rode behind. 

After them followed the rest of the army, and in 
the underwood by the sides of the road the woodland 
people pattered along, looking with all their eyes and 
admiring with all their hearts. But when the town 
bridge came in sight, they dared not come any fur- 
ther, but pattered back to their own nests and dens. 

You can imagine how the Ryetown people came 
*out to meet the army, and welcome the victors who 
had destroyed the castle and the wizard and the witch 
who had been a trouble to them so long. 

Mrs. Peterkin brought a great spray of her pur- 
ple clematis, and wound it about the bull’s white 
horns, while Mr. Peterkin carried a goblet of cow- 
slip wine for the generals to drink, and his assistants 
came behind with baskets of cakes and all sorts of 
nice things, while Buttons and Perky danced after 
and thought there was never such a hero before 
265 


266 The Wizards of Ryetown 



The Ryetown People Came out to Meet the Army. 


as their big brother Snups, or such a jolly girl as 
Lavender. 

Now when they had left the good Peterkins rejoic- 


The Wizards of Ryetown 267 

ing over Snups’ safe return, and bewailing, their folly- 
in being so deceived by false Goody; when they had 
left the head cook at the door of the Puff and Dart, 
where a pretty niece and her husband, who had been 
keeping the place going, took him by both hands and 
made much of him; when they had listened to all 
manner of pretty speeches, and had made no end of 
pretty speeches in return, they left the Ryetowners to 
eat and drink and talk and sing, and they got on the 
bull’s back again and rode off together, just their 
two selves, to quiet Lavender Garden. 

“ How do you think the bull is going to swim 
through that cave?” whispered Lavender. “His 
shoulders are much too broad.” 

“ He can’t do it,” whispered Prince Robin, “ he’ll 
have to make a hole in the hedge. Let us leave it 
to him and see what he’ll do. He’s a sensible fel- 
low.” 

So sure enough when they came to the river the 
bull snuffed at the water, and snuffed at the hedge, 
and finally set his great shoulders where the hedge 
was lowest and was through in the garden in no 
time. 

Oh, dear, how Ebony and Ivory did scamper off 
when they saw his broad curly head and white 
horns. Lavender had to jump down and run after 


268 The Wizards of Ryetown 

them to tell them there was no danger, and that the 
bull was a great friend, though his manners were 
sometimes rather unpolished. And she kissed the 
little maidens and told them how many things she 
had learnt in her travels, and how she would never 
be cross or proud with them again. 

How they exclaimed to see their princess so 
ragged and torn ; and how they took her to her bower 



They Brushed Her Hair. 


and washed her in rose-water and milk, and dressed 
her in her finest robes, and brushed her golden hair 
until it shone as it never had before, and set her gold 
crown upon her head. 

Then they set to work to rub up the Prince's gold 
armour, and they rubbed and rubbed till it was a 
sight to see, and then sat down to make him a suit 


The Wizards of Ryetown 269 

of gold-coloured silk, and a beautiful goldy-brown 
mantle with lavender sprays embroidered round the 
edge. The bull lay on the green grass by the river 
side, and the milk-white goats came and wondered 
at him, and Lavender sat hand in hand with Prince 
Robin, and they rested, for you may be sure they 
were tired. 

But was this the end, you want to know. Did 
they just rest and be quiet and trouble no more about 
being king and queen ? Not at all. 

As soon as they were rested and the Prince's new 
clothes were quite ready, and Ebony and Ivory had 
brushed every curl on the bull's head till it was as 
glossy as silk (you will hardly believe it, but the bull 
liked this immensely), they rode off again to Rye- 
town. Here they called all the citizens together in 
the market-place, and asked them what they thought 
about the matter. 

“ This is the way we look at it," they said. “ A 
long while ago we tried having no ruler at all, and 
then we wasted half our time and addled our 
brains trying to rule ourselves, and a pretty bother 
it was. We had a bad ruler while this judge was 
up at the castle, and then we lost half our goods 
through his mean ways, besides being fair scared 
at Julia, so now we should like to try what a real 


2 jo The Wizards of Ryetown 

good ruler is like. So we want you to be our king 
and queen. Shall we build you a new castle where 
the old black one used to stand ? ” 

“ Yes,” they answered, “ we should like that very 
much.” 

So the people of Ryetown and Barleyborough 
joined together to build them a new castle all of 
creamy- white stone, just where the wicked old black 
one had stood, and Mrs. Peterkin planted round it 
slips from her own plants, so that it was covered 
in no time with lovely clematis and jessamine and 
climbing geranium, and was as different from the 
old castle as it could possibly be. 

And while it was building Prince Robin went on 
his travels and learned how to rule and all the rest of 
the things a king ought to know, while Lavender 
stayed in her garden, and learned what a queen ought 
to know. And she had a lovely summer palace built 
there. Of course on working days they lived at the 
big castle and did their work, but this was for holi- 
days. There were bright airy rooms in it and great 
swimming-baths, and cool marble halls where foun- 
tains played, to sit in on hot days; and there was a 
paddock with a house in it for the bull, and another 
for the cow, for though she was an untrustworthy 
creature, she gave most beautiful milk. 


The Wizards of Ryetown 271 

When the Prince came back, they were both 
grown up, he and Lavender married each other, and 
were King and Queen of Ryetown and Barley- 
borough all the rest of their lives. 

Snups was the Royal Musician, and the head 
cook was Court Poet, and they let him go into the 
kitchen whenever he liked, for he said frying pans 
inspired him. Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin often came 
to spend the day, for Queen Lavender had a Royal 
Road made between Ryetown and Lavender Garden. 
The thin boy was apprenticed to the Peterkins, but 
to Mr. Peterkin’s great disappointment he never got 
fat, he was much too fond of running. 

As to Goody, I will not say anything about her, 
because you may very likely hear about her another 
time, and if you want to know what became of all 
the other people you have met in this tale, you had 
better go to Lavender Garden and ask. 

There, very likely, if it is a fine day, you will hear 
Ebony and Ivory sing to the sound of Snups’ fid- 
dle, and very likely their song will be this, for King 
Robin and Queen Lavender are very fond of it. 

“ Lavender’s blue, diddle, diddle, 

Lavender’s green, 

When I am King, diddle, diddle, 

You shall be Queen. 


272 The Wizards of Ryetown 

“ Call up your men, diddle, diddle, 

Set them to work, 

Some to the plough, diddle, diddle, 

Some to the cart. 

“ Some to cut hay, diddle, diddle, 

Some to cut corn, 

While you and I, diddle, diddle, 

Keep ourselves warm.” 

And there are a great many morals in this story, 
and the first is for little boys : 

It is that you had better not look down on little 
girls too much, for they are often as brave as you 
are and quite as clever, and if it had not been for 
Lavender the castle would never have been taken, 
and Prince Robin would have starved to death in the 
toad-hole. 

The second moral is for little girls : 

It is that if you are proud and cross to those you 
think beneath you, and do not care to play with girls 
and boys who are not princes or princesses, you will 
have to learn better at the cost of a great deal of 
trouble. And if a real prince does come, don’t stop 
at home and wait until he has won his kingdom, but 
go into the world with him and share his troubles, 
for even if you do not find a Kingdom, you will find 
Contentment. 

And the third moral is for little boys and girls 


The Wizards of Ryetown 273 

alike, and that is : Be kind to every animal you see, 
however fierce or cruel they may seem at first, for you 
never know but that a time will come when you may 
need their help ; and when that time does come, woe 
to you if you have been unkind to even a black cat ! 









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. . . A wonderful exhibition, and the story of each individual is interesting 
and calculated to stimulate the youthful mind in research. . . . Pictures care- 
fully reproduced, so that they represent the creatures in their real forms and 
proportions .” — Brooklyn Eagle . 


CHAMPLIN’S YOUNG FOLKS’ 

Cyclopaedia of Literature and Art 

With 270 illustrations. 604 pp. 8vo. $2.50 

Brief accounts of the great books, buildings, statues, pictures, 
operas, symphonies, etc. 

“ Few poems, plays, novels, pictures, statues, or fictitious characters that 
children — or most of their parents— of our day are likely to inquire about will 
be missed here. . . . Mr. Champlin’s judgment seems unusually sound— will 
be welcome and useful.” — Nation. 

“ Every schoolboy should have it on his study table. . . . The range of 
the volume is very wide, for besides those items of classical knowledge which 
constitute the average school encyclopaedia, we have brief descriptions given 
of modern books, poems, inventions, pictures, and persons about which the 
lad of the period should be acquainted. . . . The pictures in the volume are 
varied and truly illustrative. Old pictures and sculpture are presented in the 
usual line of drawings, but modern scenes and buildings are pictured through 
excellent half-tone reproductions of photographs.”— Af. Y. Times Saturday 
Review. 

Earlier Volumes of Champlin's Young Folks* Cyclopaedia. 

With numerous illustrations. 8vo. $ 2.50 each. 

COMMON THINGS. PERSONS and PLACES. 
GAMES and SPORTS. 

12-page circular , with sample pages of Champlin' s Young 
Folks' Cyclopedias and his other books , free. 

HENRY HOLT & CO. 


ROMANCES OF TRAVEL 


Th e Princess Passes 

By the Authors of “The Lightning Conductor’ * 

With numerous full-page pictures by Edward Penfield, and 
several reproductions of photographs of the scenes. $1.50 
A humorous romance of travel on the “ Continent,” in which 
the leading characters are again a charming American girl 
and a susceptible Englishman. About half the travel is by 
automobile; the rest is an Alpine walking tour. The route is 
through northern France and Switzerland to the Italian Lakes, 
thence among the Valois Alps to Nice and Monte Carlo. 

Three large printings were required before publication. 


NEW EDITION WITH SCENES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 

The Lightning Conductor 

The Strange Adventures of a Motor Car 
By C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON. $1.50 

A love story of a beautiful American and a gallant English- 
man. who stoops to conquer. Two almost human automobiles, 
the one German, heavy and stubborn, and the other French, 
light and easy-going, play prominent parts. There is much 
humor. Picturesque scenes in Provence, Spain and Italy pass 
before the reader’s eyes in rapid succession. 

Twenty printings of this novel have been called for. 

Nation: “ Such delightful people, and such delightful scenes. ...” 
N. Y. Sun: “ A pleasant and felicitous romance.” 

Springfield Republican: “Wholly new and decidedly entertaining.” 
Chicago Rost: “ Sprightly humor . . . the story moves.” 


The Pursuit of Phyllis 

By J. HARWOOD BACON. $1.25 

A humorous love story with scenes in England, France, 
China and Ceylon. 

Boston Transcript: “ A bright and entertaining story of up-to-date 
men and women.” 

N V Tribune : “Very enjoyable. . . Its charm consists in its 
naturalness and the sparkle of the dialogue and descriptions.'’ 


Henry Holt and Company 

New York \> s ) Chicago 


Each one of them is a blessing. It will aid digestion , induce 
health , and add to the joy of the living .” — Washington Star. 


More Cheerful Americans 

By CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS 

Illustrated by MRS. SHINN and others. i2mo, $1.25. 


Eighteen humorous tales in the vein of the author’s popular 
“Cheerful Americans” with a dozen equally humorous pic- 
tures, six of them by Florence Scovel Shinn. To these is 
appended a delightfully satirical paper on “ How to Write a 
Novel for the Masses.” 


EVEN JADED LITERARY EDITORS ENJOY THESE STORIES. 

N. Y. Evening Post : “The title not only fits the hook, but is 
equally applicable to those who read it. The delight of Mr. 
Loomis's stones is the utter lack of seriousness with which he takes life. 
. . . Many glittering- little bits of humor side by side with various 
open attacks upon the follies and foibles of mankind.” 

N. Y. Times Review : “ We take this occasion to publicly thank Mr. 
Loomis. . . . This new volume of American humor equals in 
merit its predecessor, * Cheerful Americans.’ It is tuii of good, 
comic tales, well told. . . . Slices of real life. ... A book full of whole- 
some diversion.” 


Cheerful Americans 

By CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS. 

With 24 Illustrations by FLORENCE SCOVEL SHINN, 
FANNY Y. CORY and others. i2mo. $1.25 


Seventeen humorous tales, including three quaint automobile 
stories, and the “Americans Abroad ” series, “The Man of 
Putty,” “Too Much Boy,” “The Men Who Swapped Lan- 
guages,” “ Veritable Quidors,” etc. 

N. V. Times Saturday Review says of one of the stories : “ IT IS 
WORTHY OF FRANK STOCKTON.” The rest of the notice 
praises the book. 

N. Y. Tribune : “He is unaffectedly funny, and entertains US from 
beginning: to end.” 

Nation: “ The mere name and the very cover are full of hope. . . . 
This small volume is a safe one to lend to a gambler, an invalid, a 
hypochondriac, or an old lady : more than safe for the normal man. . . . 

The book should fulfill a useful mission on rainy days.” 


Henry Holt and Company 

29 West Twenty-third Street - New York 


i 7 th PRINTING OF A FAVORITE HUMOROUS NOVEL. 




By DAVID DWIGHT WELLS. 

With a Cover by Nicholson, nmo. $1.25. 



A very humorous- story, dealing with English society, grow- 
ing out of certain experiences of the author while a member of 
our Embassy in London. The elephant’s experiences, also, are 
based on facts. 

THE NATION: 

“He is probably funny because he cannot help it.” 
BOSTON TRANSCRIPT: 

“The story is on the order of Frank Stockton’s cleverest 


work.’ 


N. Y. TRIBUNE: 

“Mr. Wells allows his sense of humor to play about the 

f >ersonalities of half a dozen men and women, whose lives, 
or a few, brief, extraordinary days, are inextricably inter- 
twined with the life of the aforesaid monarch of the jungle. 
. . . Smacks of fun which can be created by clever actors 

placed in excruciatingly droll situations.” 

N. Y. COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER: 

“A really delicious chain of absurdities . . . exceed- 

ingly amusing.” 

BUFFALO EXPRESS: 

“So amusing is the book that the reader is almost too 
tired to laugh when the elephant puts in his appearance.” 


HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. 

29 W. 23d Street, ( xii , -03). NEW YORK- 




















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•■COPY DEL. "TO CAT OW 

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